A Guide to Creating Linkbait

A new in-depth guide from Distilled

Value/Importance: [rating=4]

Recommended link: http://www.distilled.net/linkbait-guide/

Our commentary

We think this is one of one of the most useful free guides and workbooks for marketers published this year.

Particularly relevant to SEO and E-PR it's an in-depth guide from Distilled, complete with a workbook for running brainstorm sessions specifically for Linkbait ideas.

If you haven't encountered the term, linkbaiting is just a short way of describing the creation of amazing pieces of content (blogs, ebooks, info-graphics, videos etc) that are inherently valuable & that other websites, bloggers etc will want to link to. Essentially you are earning the right to get links to your website, something Seth Godin would call Permission marketing. The intern used by Distilled (interesting approach) does a fantastic job in this guide, going through the process right from the beginning in terms of understanding your audience right through to how best to share that content to create the relationships & inbound links.

Its great to see that Distilled are obviously practicing what they preach by creating & sharing this guide, something I am sure they will have learnt from the success SEOmoz.org. The workbook appended to the guide is a great asset & I am sure something they use for client projects and usually something agencies would want to protect rather than share.

The process they discuss while they call link baiting is actually what you should be doing to create amazing content for your audience. That amazing content in this instance is measured by the number of links it generates, a key metric when thinking purely about SEO but the links will also create the opportunity to generate traffic from other sites as well as increase engagement and even conversion on your website so make sure you have clarity on the KPI's you want to influence.

Marketing implications of the guide

The process from this guide is what you should make the most use of. Creating amazing & valuable content is and has always been key to success online. Make sure you read through this guide, print it off, make notes & run through the process for you business, I am sure you will learn something new or be reminded of things you should not have forgotten. If you use an agency to manage your search and have yet to see any evidence of this style of work I would suggest going through the process with them, I am sure together you can come up with & implement some things to further boost your rankings.

Something I understand from my experience is that the "big idea" is what makes the difference between average content & remarkable content or what some people might call viral content. Only through an in-depth understanding of your audience & clarity on objectives will your next big idea come to you. The rest of the guide is a process to be followed and shouldn't be over-complicated!