Link Bait

Link Baiting - Oh, it sounds somewhat sinister…

The term just reeks of something less than ethical yet it is one of the best tactics new and seasoned bloggers alike can use to build up the page rank and visibility of a blog.

What is link baiting?

Our friend and client, Keith Bloemendaal, has just given the world a perfect example on his newly finished blog website Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.

Keith’s latest post is titled Friday Blog Link.

In this post Keith mentions he plans on using this tactic every Friday, what tactic you say? Link Baiting is the artful and somewhat creative method of bringing attention to yourself and your blog by linking to respected blogs and bloggers. When writing a link bait article the intention is to be complimentary to peers in your niche and o slightly out of your niche in an effort to get these same bloggers to either write about or link to you and your blog in return.

In his article Keith has linked to no less than 6 blogs and bloggers he respects and he continues the link parade with no less than 7 additional links to other pages and articles within sites owned by these bloggers.

See the example paragraph below

Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger, Chris Brogan, Connie Benson, and numerous SEO and marketing blogs, I always keep a close eye on my mentor, and close friend Scott Pooler and his writings on iBusinessLogic and Trading Assistant Journal. I want to focus every week on Fridays to the blogs I read and discover. We will cover many topics over the coming weeks, this week we will focus on a home improvement blog I subscribe to called Helpful Advice for Home Construction Improvement:

For a guy who is relatively new to the blogging world, I must say that Keith never ceases to amaze me with the grasp he has on social networking. This link bait article of his was done with style and with real respect for the people he is hoping will return the link love he has extended.

Obviously in my case it has worked - this article is my way to return the favor to Keith and the Raleigh Fence Contractors Blog. I am sure I will not be the only one returning the favor.

This is really the point… exchanging links is a primary goal for most bloggers, this endeavor is something traditional website owners do not have as much of a grasp upon. Without inbound links to your site, from relevant sites, you will not climb in page rank. Search engines love to find new links and they love you more if those links end up on your site somewhere.

The best part of link baiting within blogs is it is almost completely automatic. This is because when you place a link to a blog on your blog, the blog platform (Wordpress, Movable Type, Blogger etc) automatically sends a message to the other blog called a trackback. This informs the other blog you are mentioning them in your blog. That’s how I found out Keith had mentioned me in his blog, from a trackback. In essence, it is really bait… You send out the link bait into the blogosphere and just sit back and wait for the fish to come back and read what you said about them.

So go ahead, Link Bait Away… Its really not sinister or rude… Just a way to say hello… look at me, I like your blog, do you like mine?

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Arctic Spring Water of Tampa Bay, Florida selected iBusinessLogic.com to design the new Arctic Water website and blog.

The owner of Arctic Spring of Clearwater, Nick Chachula is very interested in the inherent power of content management websites and blogs. He was intrigued by the idea that he could reduce his overall Pay Per Click advertising budget by utilizing a website built upon blog technology.

Nick’s old website was built just 2 years ago but he found it very difficult to update and his webmaster was not always available to make changes. Nick is excited about the very real possibility that he can manage his own business website after a short training session with iBusinessLogic’s Scott Pooler.

“Adding content in the form of blog posts to any website will build up the page rank and therefore the organic search standing of that site” said Scott Pooler, CEO of iBusinessLogic.com of Largo, Florida. “We are pleased to be working with an established and reliable company like Arctic Spring”. When companies like this come to us for a new way to run their websites we are always happy to help!

The following is a screen shot of the first mock up of the new Arctic Spring water site. Changes will be made before it is officially launched but Nick Chachula is really excited by the fresh and clean look of the new site.

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Your Company Needs a New Website

• Looking for an alternative to a difficult to manage old style website?
• Is your company website getting stale while becoming invisible as it drops in the search engine rankings?
• Have you asked yourself why you’re spending so much money on Pay Per Click Advertising from the big three search engines?
• Would it be great to have a website and be able to update it or add valuable content to it whenever you want?

Why not try a new direction? Go Web 2.0 and create a new website for your company with a modern design based upon content management solutions.

What is a content management solution or CMS (usually referred to as a content management system)?

A CMS is a complete website system which takes care of all of the hard work for you:  it manages all of the page generation duties and creates a new page for your website on demand. The user simply fills the new page with content in the form of text, images, videos and more, just as they would if creating a Word document. Publishing content on the web has never been easier for the end user.

Blogs are websites.  They can appear just as any modern corporate website, but blog/CMS websites are equipped with several search related advantages.

Why worry about search? What is search?

Search is the term used by website developers when referring to the search engines. All of the major search engines are out looking for new information on the web each and every day. If your website has been scanned by a search engine and is found to have no new or relevant content to report back to the database, the search (spider) will move on to the next site and not come back to your website for a longer interval between scans. The longer a website is maintained with no new content being added, the further that website will fall to the bottom of the search engine rankings.

There is more to ranking highly in the search engines than just picking a few relevant keywords.

Keywords are great, but the search engines are looking for more. Search engines want to see keywords placed in content in the form of actual articles, white papers and documents. The more the better.  If these articles are added in a naturally occurring fashion, one at a time, on a daily or bi-weekly basis, the search engines will assign more value to the web site where these articles are found.

Our main website, iBusinessLogic.com has a great deal of relevant content and is based upon a content management solution. This blog is also a content management solution website.  By simply adding this easy to use and update blog to our already content rich website, we have jumped to a Page Rank of 4 from a Page Rank of 2 in a matter of weeks, even though our new blog has very few articles yet. We attribute this jump to the tagging system in the CMS technology of this blog site attached directly to our website.

What does all of this mean?

What this means is web 2.0 CMS based web development will outperform any web 1.0 hard coded hard to update website. It will help a small company compete for space on organic search while giving the general public (your customers) a better understanding of your company, your goals and the information you have to offer.

What can I write about my company?

We can help you with ideas about what to write, but I am sure if anyone owns or manages a business, they have millions of ideas each and every day about the services or products they offer. Customer testimonials, new and interesting programs, mistakes made and corrected…the list is endless and your customers want to know more about your company that the average stale website can provide.

Share information and gain traffic, confidence and new customers. Focus on what you do, what you offer and where you work… and a Web 2.0 CMS based website and/or blog will help you succeed online like never before!

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