Linkbaiting, To Improve Organic BackLinks

A recent term coined to define known editorial practices, linkbaiting boasts of accelerating the recognition of sites, and therefore their SEO.

Linkbaiting, an attempt at definition

Linkbaiting is a set of techniques that make it possible to encourage the readers of a website to create a organic backlink from their own website, their blog, or their tagigng platform account to the site in question..

In theory, this makes it possible to supplement the investment made in SEO in terms of keyword purchases by working on the visibility of the site, by creating buzz, for example.

What practices for linkbaiting?

You have to publish rich content, content that is not copied or recopied from another website. The published content must also be understandable by the reader as well as by the search engines. But the technique of linkbaiting relies on the reader who, because he finds the content rich, will link it. Rich content can occur in many different and varied forms.

Podcast, video, interviews, rewards for readers. Specific tools, online games and forums are effective ways to create linkbaiting.

Posting from outside contributors or experts can also be a way to engage your readership and generate links. Finally, other specialists recommend the publication of lists on specific topics. This way of proceeding conscribes the content in a form that can be easily memorized and characterized by the reader, encouraging him to create a link in the direction of the content.

But causing links also requires a pro-active approach to the visibility of its content on known and recognized tagging platforms. Del.icio.us, Digg, Fuzz or even Scoopeo in France allow to help seo by Internet users, to start the link pump in a way.

Linkbaiting for the pros, an option?

This technique does not only apply to non-commercial sites. In the case of online stores, for example, it is possible to publish quality content on the products, on the points of sale, on the opinions of Internet users, in short on an informative added value that will make you want to put a link, to recommend a page. In addition, some SEO specialists suggest using linkbaiting from a website optimization perspective to stick to the concept of long tail. The idea is to multiply the keywords present on an Internet page so that its SEO also improves on terms which are not central to the theme of the page.

For example, a site that offers hotel room rentals will improve its ranking and its SEO on queries relating to research on restaurants, purchases of transport tickets, and the cultural offer offered in a particular region.

Linkbaiting, a controversial concept

In fact, web specialists are divided on the question of linkbaiting between those who consider it a technique in itself, and those who do not find a real difference between this way of doing things and the good practices of writing on the Internet that exist. since a long time. Clearly, is linkbaiting a pure marketing term intended to sell an additional service but devoid of any innovation, or is it really a revolutionary concept?

In addition, the idea of ​​publishing content with the primary objective of causing links to improve the reputation and SEO of a site can lead to inefficient practices, even fraudulent.

Thus, in May 2008, crisp false news was relayed by several American sites in order to generate organic backlinks to them. Google, having noticed the deception, warned that it could in the future punish the perpetrators of this act of linkbaiting, just like the authors of spam.

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