A few days ago Maholo founder Jason Calcanis posted a blog post about 17 ways to save money in a start-up. Because of one controversial statement in an otherwise mundane post, he started an intense debate in the blogosphere. I’m not going to weigh in because practically anywhere in the tech blog world you go you can find an opinion. What I am going to talk about is the real purpose of the post which, IMHO, had nothing to do with start-ups or saving money. It was linkbait.
Inbound links are gold from an SEO point of view. If they are from sites relevant to your site’s subject matter they weigh heavily in your favor with the search engines. They also drive a lot of traffic if they come from high traffic sources. Any savvy blogger is on the lookout for ways to acquire links and controversy is a proven tactic. This is known as linkbaiting- writing pieces that piss people off or invite lots of commenting and discussion on other blogs. Calcanis is a master of linkbaiting.
Other common ways to fish for links are insulting Apple Inc. (draws the fanboys in droves), writing contrary comments on sites like Techcrunch (however they get so many that this is no longer very effective) and guest-posting on the blogs of others. Guest-posting is pretty easy as most bloggers are thrilled to have someone else write for them and flattered if you ask nicely. Just write something and submit it to a blog you like.
Linkbait is a better tactic than simply requesting a link exchange because it is in relevant context which makes the links far more valuable.
If you blog and don’t have traffic, add in a few creative linkbait initiatives. Even one good link can make a huge difference in your popularity.
Here’s a pretty cool linkbuilding chart.