Website and blog publishers that want to boost their traffic numbers are finding there's a new buzz word going around. "Linkbaiting" is the latest craze in tactics to drive traffic to websites. Whether it's good, bad or otherwise remains a matter of debate. The reality is, however, that some of the practices involved in linkbaiting are rather effective.



The word linkbaiting is relatively new, but the practices it now defines are not. The term itself is used to describe a number of measures that publishers take to gain incoming links to their websites or blogs. Some of these measures are considered rather legitimate, but not all are. A few of the practices that fall under this new term's focus include creating awards programs or contests, writing comments on high-traffic blogs or forums, giving other publishers tools or links to your site, creating high-quality content and so on.

The term linkbaiting has earned a dark reputation in the online community, but the fact is many of the measures it defines are anything but shady. Most publishers work their tails off to come up with effective ways to gain traffic and incoming links. In doing so, they can realize increase revenue potential. Linkbaiting can be a great tool to make this happen. Some of its practices are so beneficial, in fact, many SEO optimization businesses offer linkbaiting packages to their clients. On its own, linkbaiting is not bad. It's all a matter of how the effort is handled.

In spite of its rocky reputation, linkbaiting has become a fairly popular practice. The reasons for this are many. The biggest is the traffic and potential income gains that can be realized. The second factor involves this practice's ability to help increase a site's page ranking. Since part of the page ranking formula involves incoming links, this practice can be very valuable.

Although linkbaiting has its potential perks, site owners should be aware of a few things. The most important, especially for bloggers, is to ensure the quality of the content is high. A big rush of traffic due to incoming links can be a good thing, if that traffic turns into regular visitors. Making this so requires content people actually want to read. For any linkbaiting effort, legitimate or not, to really pay off, those visitors that come in need to keep returning.

The number of different measures that fall under the linkbaiting definition are many. Some of the more common and generally non-shady ideas include offering up tools for other sites to use, writing good content, offering useful information, sponsoring awards programs and contents and even providing a bit of humor and fun. The best linkbaiting ideas involve drawing natural links via the creation of a good site and/or useful tools. It's that simple.

There are a few somewhat shady means to draw incoming links, as well. These include such ideas as going for a shock factor, attack posts or articles, purposely focusing on controversy and so on.

Linkbaiting itself is not really a bad word. Although the term can describe some methods few enjoy using, the idea behind the concept is a good one. Those who tend to do very well when using some of the practices are publishers that happen to offer something for a visitor's trouble in stopping by.