Things to note when link baiting

Link bait is a much abused term these days. Matt Cutts coined it and since then it’s been used extensively in the blogosphere. Matt says -

On a meta-level, I think of “linkbait” as something interesting enough to catch people’s attention, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. There are a lot of ways to do that, including putting in sweat-of-the-brow work to generate data or insights, or it can be as simple as being creative. You can also say something controversial to generate discussion (this last one gets tired if you overuse it, though). Sometimes even a little bit of work can generate a reason for people to link to you.

I should say I completely agree to Matt, just like the rest of the millions. And the term wouldn’t have been explained any better than this one.

So how many of us have not link-baited deliberately? I think there are two types of link-baits. One - Casual and second - Deliberate.

The first one handles things on it’s own. When you wrote something honest and someone else picked it up and carried forward. Happens without your knowledge most of the time.

The second one is crafted. You either write an article on a controversial subject or write something evil so that it get’s others attention.

Well, something of this sort(you decide if it’s first or second type) happened to me last week.

I noted something interesting in Darren’s blog and reported about it here. It was an impulsive post and I had no intentions anything at all of it being controversial or so called “link bait” stuff.

Now it so happened that Darren got a bit irritated by this post and commented about it here. He said that it is a misleading post.

I had to disagree with him because I had no intentions of misleading anyone or hurting anyone. But down the line, I think what he says is correct. The article could be misinterpreted by readers. Could this be a controversy? I don’t know.

But there is a lesson here I’d love to share with you guys.

While creating Link baits dealing with controversial subjects (deliberate that is..)

• Don’t get personal with someone. It isn’t a healthy sign.
• When dealing with a controversial subject, write with extra care. A word misplaced can take big deviations from your intent.
• Do not point readers to take an action.
• Do not assume things, but write on facts. And it would be great if you can provide them right in the article.
• Keep the ethics in mind. Do not overdo things and cross the line.
• See how yourself and your readers will get involved in it. If they don’t better not write on the topic.
• Read the article from the reader’s perspective, take a neutral stand and leave it to the reader’s to judge.
• Don’t be partial.
• Make sure that you have room for some debate.
• Make sure the topic itself is attractive to the mass.

Having said all these, I know how difficult it is to not write your mind out on something that affects you. Like a website ranking higher than your’s using black hat SEO methods and Google doing nothing about it. It can be frustrating. but realize that this is your problem. Your reader’s just might not be interested in it unless it affects them. You got to strike a balance in between and keep things going.

Articles like this one is a good example of how things can go out of hand if not taken care of at the right time.