In the past two weeks several of our clients have asked us about link baiting, the practice of creating valuable content for one’s website that encourages people to link to it from other websites. This practice is popular with some companies and individuals because the quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the many metrics used by a search engine ranking algorithm to rank a website – meaning the company with more quality inbound links will appear higher in searches via Google or Yahoo.

To learn more about the practice and pitfalls of link baiting, we reached out to several experts and learned the following:

1. It’s acceptable. There is nothing wrong with the practice of link baiting from a moral or ethical practice. In fact, according to Joel Johnson, with Response Mine Interactive, “the practice of link baiting is one of the few forms of link building approved by Google, which endorses a model of links based upon content.” He went on to explain link baiting has the potential to create a substantial number of powerful links. So, all in all, this has the potential to be one of the safest and strongest forms of link building.
2. Nonetheless, the practice of link baiting is not without challenges. One of the pitfalls is that creating compelling content can be time and resource consuming. Furthermore, it is not easy to figure out what content is going to be commented on or capture people’s attention. An organization may invest considerable time developing content that it believes is going to be successful in attracting link backs only to find it falls flat and is a costly failure.
3. Stay within the spirit of your brand. From a corporate reputation or thought-leadership perspective, organizations need think about their overarching objectives when creating content for link baiting. Clearly, one does not want to create provocative content to drive link backs at the expense of alienating key audiences. Posting controversial material on one’s website as a ploy to drive comments or links can backfire if the content does not support your organization’s brand or thought leadership goals. One way to ensure content is supportive of an organization’s goals is to involve the PR or communications team in a discussion about it.
4. Remember your reputation can be enhanced (or damaged) by the company you keep. When engaging in the practice of link baiting, it is essential that a company review each link before just accepting the link back. You want to avoid accepting links from sites creating spam as these links will clutter up your website and have the potential to damage your organization’s character. One SEO expert recommends only linking to sites that have a Google page rank of three or more and that you feel provide excellent value. Click here for a free page rank checker.

Like any other marketing tactics, when done right link baiting or link building can be very effective, however, it can also be expensive and time consuming. Attention-grabbing or gimmicky content is likely to attract the wrong traffic so be careful when engaging in this practice. Remember if you’re authentic, truly adding value or providing useful information to key audiences you are likely to see people naturally commenting and linking back to your content.