The Tao of Linkbait Method

The art of hitting your target audience by aiming at a completely different audience.

Have you ever seen a great little movie called The Tao of Steve? It?s a gem of a movie, low budget, independent flick that presents the art of chasing girls in philosophical terms.

The Steve being referenced is:

  • Steve McQueen (Bullit)
  • Steve Austin (Bionic man)
  • Steve McGarrett (Hawaii Five-0)

They have a certain cool, a quality about them that seems to attract people without really trying.

The film goes on to describe a philosophy of how men can attract women, but I think it’s applicable to attracting links.

  • Eliminate your desires.
  • Do something excellent in her presence, thereby proving your sexual worthiness.
  • Retreat, for as Heidegger said, “We pursue that which retreats from us”.

Recreating that cool quality will attract links.

There is another off beat movie from the same era called Swingers and it suggests you only get a girl back when you no longer want her. But I don?t want to stretch the movie metaphor too much.

When creating a piece of linkbait, lateral thinking can be very useful. Our target market when creating the linkbait may not be the regular readers. Our readers may not be linkers, it?s the linkers which we need to seduce into handing over that golden link. SEO blogs are the exception.

Example. Your client sells cashmere products. Difficult to get links from other Cashmere sites and the customer base tends to be people who wish to buy and wear cashmere rather than write and link about it.

So we craft an article that is irresistible to another target market which is sympathetic to the product. We target Knitting blogs. Knitters have an interest in cashmere as it?s a product they use. Therefore they will be interested in numerous aspects of cashmere, although it?s unlikely any will become customers they benefit in linking to useful information about cashmere.

After an article has been created which excites the target market they are contacted for their opinion on the article. By not directly asking for a link it is more likely the article will be read and it?s potential is realised and a link given.

Knitting blogs may have their own social media sites where they hang out, if not the direct method of emailing and commenting on their blogs can be used.

Once the link is given, link juice is passed, SERPS improve, job done.