Parts of this blog post were previously posted on Linkbait Coaching
Creating a list of potential headlines for a specific niche is a worthwhile start to any linkbaiting work. I would suggest:
- Turn off email, twitter etc
- Turn off computer (if you can) and use paper and pen
- Allow at least two hours, the first hour is mostly about getting the brain into gear for the second hour
- Consider the wildest of headlines, let your mind roam
- It helps if the content somewhat reflects the headline, although this does not always have to be the case.
- Walk and record ideas on your iPhone, if you are worried if people think you are mad, pretend you are talking to a client.
- Test ideas of other people, but make sure they are being honest and not saying they don’t like the idea because they think you smell funny.
OK, here are a bunch of ideas I came up with for an events based website that is somewhat focussed on London. It’s an important part ofwhat we do on Linkbait Coaching all the time.
10 Concerts that rocked the captial. (Stones in the park, Live Aid etc)
10 Tips on buying scaled tickets
10 Tips on sel;ling scalped tickets
10 Reasons why you shouldn’t buy scalped tickets
Google Maps mash up to busking
10 Worst stage divers
How to get past security at a rock concert
10 Best riots at football matches
10 buy executive boxes at London Football stadia
Why it sounds weird referring to the plural of a stadium as stadia
10 Similarities of gladiators and footballers
10 Rock stars who electrocuted themselves in concerts
10 Best London concert halls/stadia for toilets
Essential tips for going to the toilet at a concert
10 reasons you are an idiot taking pictures of your Rock here on your mobile phone
10 Reasons Lady Gaga wont be attending Glynbourne
Top London football clubs owned by foreigners
Why Maddona will not be playing Lady MacBeth at the RSC
Power politics at the Covent Garden Opera house
Most haunted Theatres in London
London theatres to arm actors to make Americans more comfortable
Shakespearien actors who translate to the silver screen (Berkoff, McEwan etc.)
How to tackle noisy people at the theatre
10 Reasons why beer should be served whilst you watch the opera
10 reasons scaffolders don’t go to the opera. (if brave you could interview scaffolders about this and offer audio)
How to pick up chicks at rock concerts
10 Outrageous divas who have played Wembly
e
Obviously many of these headlines can be interchanged or mashed up with others to hit the sweet spot. I have used “rock” as an interchangable term for any kind of style. There is a lot of juice to be had out of the physical aspect of the concert venue, offering tips of the best and worst place to sit, toilet, food, exit etc.
London has a lot of history but linkalicious content tends to have a contemporary feel, comparisons with the past and the present work very well.
Would Shakespeare write different plays for the Globe if he used an iPad?
Blueglass.com
The Explosive Power of the Retweet Revealed by Twitter
jeffbullas.com
Infographic Link Building: Reverse Image Search
paddymoogan.com
The Upside of Being Ordinary And Obvious
rohitbhargava.com
How To Optimize Your Twitter Marketing
searchenginewatch.com
The Dirty Little Secret Of Overnight Success
fastcompany.com
How to Create a Successful Editorial Calendar
unbounce.com
10 Reasons Why We Love Making [and Reading] Lists
npr.org
44 Must Read Resources on Content Marketing
kissmetrics.com
26 Elements of a Gamification Marketing Strategy
socialmediaexaminer.com
Pinterest – Spammers Are A Girl’s Best Friend
blogsuccess.com
How To Filter Your Twitter Stream by Using Twitter Lists
searchenginepeople.com
Building a Link Development Calendar
outspokenmedia.com
55 top tips and tricks from LinkLove London 2012
wordtracker.com
How to monitor your website for link equity loss
icrossing.co.uk
1 Simple Trick To Getting Millions Of YouTube Views
higherclick.com
Social networking goes to work
gigaom.com
Online Selling to the Subconscious
webanalyticsworld.net
Pinterest Popped: Why It Won’t Drive Traffic To Your Site
tudordavies.wordpress.com
Thought Leaders and Failures of Digital Integration: Why I’m Rejecting Inbound Marketing
jamescarson.co.uk
Displaying Social Proof – What the Marketing Experts Use
kissmetrics.com
The Talent of Persuading Social Tribes is more effective than pure SEO
Cornwallseo.com archives, dated Jan, 2007
Content Curation Guide for SEO – What, How, Why
seomoz.com
Proofing for Problems – SEO and Web Development
level343.com
mytoptweet.com
http://www.zemanta.com
Get to let bloggers know about your content as they create blog posts
http://followerwonk.com/
Explore what your followers are talking about
Easy subscribe to rss from Chrome
https://www.inboxq.com/
Find people asking questions about stuff you know
List of the top influential 100 people in the World
Coca Cola Content 2020 Part One This is goodWebsites
http://thingsappleisworthmorethan.tumblr.com/http://contently.com
http://www.influenceatwork.com
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/schmoozer
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup ArtistsResources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…_external_debt
I’ve been invited to speak at the Ionsearch, the advanced search marketing conference is in Leeds on the 18th of April, you can still get tickets if you hurry.
It has a very impressive speaker list including; Lee Odden, Ralph Tegtmeier aka Fantomaster, Dave Synder of Blueglass (these guys consistently produce top quality stuff, Martin MacDonald of Expedia, Patrick Altoft, Kevin Gibbons and a bunch more.
There are a few people who I have not heard of and am interested in learning more about. I am glad it’s only one day though, I find my brain hoovers up so much info it very quickly gets full.
There is a guy from Google going and looks like he’s going to rave about how great and wonderful G+ is, and interestingly Nick Garner from a gambling, gaming company is going to share insights on how beneficial G+ has been for them. Always ready to be convinced.
So it should be an interesting day, say hi and chat if we meet. It’s always great hearing other peoples experiences and views, which is frankly the best part of a conference.
I know this may be slightly off the beaten path of digital marketing, but I just want to let you know that if you are ever find yourself in Truro, the best pasties can be found at Rowes. What with the Govenment making the pasty 20% more expensive, I thought a shout out to my local pasty maker was called for.
And no they are not a client and no cash was passed under or over the table for this post, and no pasty either. Although any pasties that are sent are welcome ;)
There are other pasty makers who claim to be better and a lot of kitchen table outfits that go for the gourmet market. But these tend to be eaten by the tourists, Rowes is the place where the locals eat at. And there is always a queue when the pasty’s come out the oven.
OK, now making myself hungry again.
Their website looks cool too, although look at they only have 281 likes on their Facebook page and it’s a shame they didn’t knock up any magnetic content around the recent Pastygate.
When we put on the Magentic Web Content seminar refreshments will be pasties from Rowes
This article was previously posted on linkbaitcoaching.com
Game of Thrones
Link credit winteriscoming.net
I always say, target those who link, if you wish to get links with linkbait
Few link voraciously than fans of movies and popular TV shows.
If you create a piece of content that is based on their obsession and resonates with their fan mindset (and remember fan = fanatic) it will make them more suggestible to a link.
It’s wrong to think of this as a trick as you will only tend to get links if the content:
- Provides a solution
- Adds to the canon of content regarding the subject in a meaningful way
- Creates or continues a particular discourse.
- It respects the fan
It helps if the content creator has an understanding of the particular fan base and is not coming to the tribe cold. Interlopers are outsiders and not to be respected. A fan base should be seen as a tribe and approached accordingly.
It may be that one of the fans could be paid to create content that is linkalicious. Most fans do it for the love and would be grateful to be able to pursue their love and make a little wonga.
Also, if you commission work from a fan who has a large and vibrant fan base you have an instant traffic base, which may add any social media signals and result in helping you get more links.
This type of content may seem a bit silly if you are for example a Bristol plumber and specialise in blocked toilets. But the linkalicious content does not have to be within the normal flow of website and so people who are ankle deep in water trying to search for an available plumber don’t get confused with an article on Dragon Eggs and the most efficient hatching temperatures.
Although, well crafted content that is a little tongue in cheek can do wonders for your brand. Especially if you are in a dry sector like Bristol plumbing problems, having content that emotionally resonates with your customers will increase brand recognition.
Don’t believe me, one word.
Meerkats.
In fact, make that two words, Russian Meerkats, can you imagine how that initial idea went down at corporate HQ?
Insurance is a serious business, it’s about death, pain, loss etc.
Very few businesses are more serious than providing such a service and so back to our Bristol plumber, of course you can use content that is a little bit cheeky and a little bit silly and there is not going to be harm done to the brand.
Although I am reminded of a lot of blank, client faces that look back at me when I mention this particular way of getting links.
One of these days someone is going to say to me, “we want links, but we want them in a very boring way”.
Anyway, new series of Game of Thrones starts tonight. And if you think I wrote this to take advantage of that.
Well, duh!
p.s. also works well with the Hunger Games
As always with a product launch the Gremlins attack.
The launch of Linkbait Coaching 3.0 is going to have to be put back 24 hours. Membership will be available on Friday 23rd of March.
Apologies if you were itching to get cracking, but some things I can’t control.
I was asked about the price and I’m going to keep the price the same as it was two years ago. £200 a month.
But I am offering a Linkbait Coaching Plus account which will have a bunch of extras and get you a month free, more on this later.
I will be posting a full list of all the new stuff that is going to be in the latest incarnation.
Learn How to Linkbait like a Pro: Linkbait Coaching 3.0 Launches on Thursday
For over 4 years now I have been training and coaching people in how to get links from people using content. Sometimes known as link baiting, although I prefer the term magnetic web content. This of course is all part of content marketing, which is something I also help clients with.
Linkbaitcoaching.com was launched in 2008 and offers members a way to learn and develop their link building skills. It focuses on the development, production and promotion of content that is specifically designed to attract large amounts of links.
We are now going to open the doors again for the third time in 4 years. As you can tell this is not a mass market product launch and is very low key. This is simply because we don’t have a lot of slots, only 20 are on offer this time, because I give personal, one on one attention to all members within the membership forum.
We have 4 years of archives to plunder, examples, ideas, wild ideas that have to be caged and never go public (if you have been a member you know what I am talking about), and analysis of lots of other successful linkbait.
Please do not sign up if you think this is an easy to do course. It’s not, I expect you to work with me and to follow a process of “deliberate practice” that allows me to coach you to linkbait nirvana.
You do of course have the option to simply watch the process and suck in all the info, but you will get much more out of it if you get stuck in and we knock around some ideas.
This outing we are going to have a closer look at infographics. We have been having a lot of success with using this technique and we can coach you through the process and show you step by step how it is done.
I’m not going to deploy a bunch of sales techniques to get you to sign up, because it is only going to work for you if you really want it and already. So no, “TAP INTO THE AWESOME POWER OF LINKBAIT AND CREATE A TSUNAMI OF LINKS TO YOUR WEBSITE”, and other such nonsense.
Although saying that, past members have gone on to create some of the best linkbait in this part of the Solar System. And you will be surprised to learn who have entered the hallowed and sacred space that is the Linkbaitcoaching.com training space.
Launch is Thursday, 22nd of March.Friday, 23rd march.
Only 20 spaces available.
More info later, in the meantime sign up for the email newsletter on the right and also watch the blog and my Twitter feed.
Oh and by the way, I’m going to be adding a few new goodies to the coaching this time, more on this later.
The online marketing industry is using the term “content marketing”, widely and consistently. Which means I must use it too, even though I have an urge to write a 10k word essay on the subject of why it shouldn’t be used.
Thinking, rather than acting can sometimes (not always) hurt the bottom line.
As Linkbait Coaching 3.0 is about to launch it makes sense to start a Content Marketing course.
Most people still don’t get blogging.
Deeper thinking about the technique will always win, unless you are selling a content marketing course and then it makes more sense to say the stuff is easy. I can’t do that, which I understand does affect business and I really have tried to sell out and be a commerce whore but it goes against my OS. So, always market to those who seek high ability over a quick fix.
All online output is communication and all communication is marketing, even down to the privacy policy.
Basic, bog standard link building still works. Get in touch and I can sort you out with something very tasty.
Content marketing is the wrong term, as I have discussed before, you are not marketing content, you are using content to attract people to you website to be persuaded to perform specific actions such as purchasing, lead generation etc.
You are not marketing content, but creating magnetic content. Content that not only attracts, but is sticky, and embeds into the sub-consciousness.
But, the term content marketing has taken hold, and propagated mostly by people wanting to sell to people who lack understanding over the form.
Why is this important?
Putting too much emphasis on the content rather than the purpose of the website can take your eye off the ball. Its not abut the content, the content is merely a tool, a mechanism. Some content creators miss this aspect and end up having the cart pulling the horse.
It’s understandable because whenever the term content marketing is raised the cliched terms of “quality content! and “content is King”, are not far behind. And like all cliches, there is a foundation of truth, but not the whole truth.
I think the reason for the over focus on “content”, rather than the purpose of the website is because most content creators still don’t get the reason web content exists and what it can be used for.
A lot of content is created for the purpose of link building, if the content is created and then marketed its the wrong way round. To create content and then market the content is wasteful and inifficient. The marketing should be first and the content comes after.
You find out what the linkerati want and then you create content.
It’s odd how many come up with the idea for content before fully analysing the needs of the market they are targeting.
Find out what people want and give it to them.
Most people think the content they should be producing should be the content which they like, rather than what the market requires.
Marketing then content
Not
“Content marketing”
But I’m afraid it doesn’t scan well.
Its not simply about being pedantic, its about creating creating the correct mindset and work flow.
Developing The correct mindset is something that is crucial to creating magnetic web content and I am going to be blogging about this later.
You may not think this matters much, but if you don’t have the right content creation processes in place and most don’t then your content efforts will never reach their full potential, whilst your competitor gets it together.
Rye Bread
Truro Market Rye Bread is World renowned for its high quality and taste. People travel from miles into downtown Truro to stock up on this particular baked product.
When I bought my daily loaf I thought that building links is no different.
Offer something Unique
It’s a lot easier to build links when the content is unique and tasty. I was just delivered an infographic I had commissioned for a client and it is unique and very tasty.
If you can only rustle up mediocre content for your link building efforts it’s going to tricky to compete.
Get something Unique.
Get something tasty.