Social marketplace for real-time advice

This is a guest post from Randall Davidson. Randall Davidson helps run SEOTraining.info, an SEO training business that provides SEO training services to individuals and corporations. SEOTraining.info offers workshops across the United States, including Seattle and Los Angeles SEO training workshops.

In a nutshell, linkbait is content, such as a blog post, photo, video, or article, that is created for the purpose of organically building links to a website. These are pieces of content purposely designed to “go viral”; the creator hopes visitors will forward the content to their family and friends and share it on their social media profiles, driving traffic to the content creator’s site. The following are 10 linkbait strategies to consistently produce viral blog posts:

1. Make your content timely. In today’s 24/7 news world, your website visitors are used to content centering on what is happening now – not what happened yesterday. Content based on the latest news and trends will be your best linkbait.
2. Be controversial. Taking a controversial stance on an issue can attract both sides of the issue to your website, and encourage them to forward your link to their family, friends and colleagues. Give them an opportunity to add comments, for even more effective linkbait.
3. Use social media tools. Be sure your blog post or web page has a Facebook “Like,” Twitter “Retweet,” and other social media buttons for your visitors to instantly share your linkbait with their friends, family and colleagues.
4. Use multimedia. We are visual creatures. As such, content that includes a photo, drawing or video is often a more likely viral linkbait candidate than just text. Use these visual elements in your linkbait content for more effective linkbaiting.
5. Don’t forget the humor. Your linkbait content, at the very least, needs to be relevant and interesting; however, if you can make it also humorous, that’s linkbait gold! Whether it elicits a simple chuckle from your reader or a full-fledged ROTFLOL, a humorous piece of linkbait is more likely to be shared than one that is not.
6. Use the most popular keywords. There are numerous keyword research tools online that will tell you what topics people are searching for. Center your linkbait on these keywords and you’re sure to drive traffic to your site.
7. Begin with a bang. We are a “channel flipping” type of society. If you don’t catch and hold a reader’s interest from the beginning, there is no way they’re going to take the time to forward it on to others they know.
8. Consider writing a “top 10″ list. In today’s busy world, your visitors want their information condensed into bite-sized nuggets of knowledge. Offering a “top 5″ or “top 10″ list gives them specific, digestible pieces of information on the topic in which they are interested.
9. Begin the linkbaiting process yourself. Don’t just wait for readers to share your linkbait content on social media sites; instead, start the virtual ball rolling yourself by posting your linkbait to the top social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Digg.
10. Ask your friends, colleagues, and customers to link to and/or share your content. People like to feel like they’re helping out. Ask your visitors, as well as everyone you know, to please forward the link to your content to their friends and family.