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For search engine marketing companies the idea of Link Bait is very appealing. In simplistic terms, the more links a website has the higher it appears on Google & Yahoo! To attract these links in the past, a search engine optimisation (SEO) company had to individually approach sites with personalised emails asking for links.

It could often be time consuming and relied upon patience & good research. However a piece of Link Bait which quickly attracts a high number of links in a short period of time can often offer a better return on investment of an SEOs time than traditional link building.

The idea of Link Bait is relatively straight forward; given the prevalence of blogs and regularly updated websites, a piece of compelling content can quickly spread virally to a large number of people. Usually whenever someone mentioned, discussed or disputed they would receive a link. The wider their story spread, the more links they receives, the greater the click through traffic and the higher the search engines would regard their site.

While the concept is still fairly new, a number or search engine marketing companies are already offering Linkbaiting services and a number of trends and styles of bait have developed.

The most popular & practical technique is to provide a really high quality resource. This could be a useful tool, a collection of content in one place or any thing which proves useful to your readers and other webmasters think might be useful to theirs. The best way of doing this is to find a gap in the web or a problem & provide a solution. This is one of the least risky linkbaiting strategies & will be easy for anyone already producing high quality content.

The next technique is slightly more hazardous, write something controversial. Creating something which goes against given knowledge or disagrees with a commonly held belief is a sure fire way to bait some links. People will write stories refuting or agreeing with your point of view & provide lots of valuable one-way links. Though avoid being controversial for the sake of it. If its not something you believe 100% it can come back to haunt you. Plus its a stunt you can only pull a few times before people expect it of you.

Another trick of the trade is the humorous post, whether its parody of something the industry takes very seriously or some old fashioned jokes about your sector, humour is one of the top ways to hook a link.

One of the most risky, though potentially most rewarding forms of link bait is the attack; criticising someone or something prominent is one of the easiest; though potentially damaging ways, to attract links. It can make you look unprofessional but similarly if you have a well reasoned and justified point it can earn you respect from your peers. Definitely only one for the brave.

Almost the exact opposite to the attack is the ego link bait. Everybody is a sucker for praise, writing a follow up to an article written by another professional complimenting their work can prove successful. Similarly so can a competition or award, nobody is too shy when it comes to showing the world how popular and successful they are. And with that comes plenty of links.

While these are some of the most common ways search engine marketing companies create link bait they shouldnt be limiting. By creating compelling content that warrants attention you can find yourself top of the link bait tree.

Kelvin Newman is a search engine marketing consultant at Site Visibility Ltd. Site Visibility is a UK based search engine marketing company that helps clients increase online customer acquisition and retention using search engine optimisation, pay per click and online marketing campaign measurement techniques.

You can read his regularly updated blog at Site Visibility - Search Engine Marketing