The internet is filled with websites competing for the same niche, which makes it very difficult to attract visitors to each individual website. Without proper promotion, a website could just sit idle for days, weeks or even years and people wouldn’t notice it.

Website owners know this fact, so they have learned to adjust to the online fast-paced environment and one method of promoting websites they’ve come up with is to use link baits on their sites.

In this article you’ll find out what is a link bait, what types of link baits are there and how to plan and write the perfect link bait blog post.

What is Link Baiting?

The term ‘linkbait’ is used to describe a tool for websites designed to “lure” or generate incoming links to a particular site. It is there for the purpose of attracting web users to visit a website (increasing traffic), and as a result, they generate material which is linked and picked up by other sites.

Link baiting also pushes a site up on the search engine ladder, as a lot of search engines look at how many websites link back to yours, their quality, and measure your site’s value through these links.

Link baits definitely help promote a website, although not all link baits can be considered “good”. There are two basic types of link baits: good and bad link baits, based not on their effectiveness, but on their “attitude”.
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I believe that educated clients, who understand your job as a SEO specialist, are good clients. That way you avoid misunderstandings, many frustrating situations for you and your client and you may work more efficiently.

A client that nods their head just to get rid of you. on the other hand, needs more time to work on, more time to explain anything and thus, you lose time that you could spend on implementing the SEO strategy. And even then, you are never sure if the client actually agrees with you or still wants to get to their own business. You simply waste time and money with that kind of attitude.

Teaching your clients about SEO

That’s why, before starting a SEO campaign, you should educate your client in SEO/SEM. I’m not talking about deep training, basic things should suffice. If you don’t work directly with your employer, but with a certain team (marketing or web design agency) you should focus on giving them a glimpse on what SEO is (and what is not).
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What is SEO-friendly content and why is it important? Where is the limit between helpful and spam? The answers to these questions are essential to producing high quality, high ranking web content.

What is SEO-friendly content?

Basically, SEO-friendly content is the type of content that is both interesting and helpful for your blog readers as well as attractive for search engine spiders, which leads to better rankings.

Think of this kind of content as the intersection of publishing high quality posts with the search user’s need to find that relevant, quality content. It’s the most basic search engine promotion you could do.
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It’s a known fact that the number and quality of backlinks a page/site gets will affect its search rankings. SEO copywriters have always struggled to write not only search engine friendly content, but also creative content that would make people want to link back. Others chose the easier, but more expensive, way of the “link marketplaces”, such as TLA.

In what follows I’m going to explain one easy enough method to boost your number of backlinks and also improve your blog’s Technorati rank. All with the help of Mixx.

Initial considerations

Those of you familiar with social media, social networking and bookmarking services have surely heard of Mixx and are most probably registered users. For those that are not familiar with this service, I strongly suggest you try it.

Not necessarily because of the traffic that it could provide – which is currently way below services like Digg, Reddit or Stumble Upon – but mainly because is one of the few services that are still not “infected” with trolls, down-voters and spammers. On Mixx you can still find content worth reading and bookmarking and also, Mixx is of great help when it comes to what I’m about to share with you.

How can Mixx boost your backlinks and Technorati rank?

The answer is simple. All bookmarks added to Mixx are “do follow” links. Sure, they are marked with rel=”bookmark”, but that does not negatively affect the link.

So, what could you do to get and make better use of those links?
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When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) there are so many little things that can affect your blog’s ranking. We’ve talked about headings and titles, META tags and keywords, link building strategies, but how do we put to use our blog’s domain name and hosting to improve our rankings? This “SEO Sunday” episode will explain a few important things you should consider.

Choosing the right TLD

Some say that the TLD (Top Level Domain) – domain name extension – doesn’t matter. Most say it does and from my own experience I must agree with the majority.
First of all, let’s say your writing in your native language other than English. By choosing a country specific TLD (but not exclusively) you’ll tell search engines where your blog is based and to whom it addresses. For English written blogs, a .COM or a .NET TLD will most likely do the best jobs since the .COM is the most common extension and English the most used language online. Also, .COMs are a good alternative if your country specific TLD has already been registered.

Keyword domain names vs. Brandable domain names

A keyword in the domain name will definitely help your rankings for that specific keyword. Still, this doesn’t mean that a well optimized blog using a brandable domain name will not rank well. If your going for a brandable domain, try to play around a keyword, like I did with Blogsessive. It will add a bit to the value.

Dashes and numbers in the domain name

Unless strictly required (numbers are part of the identity, like Hi5), I would suggest to stay away from numbers. SEO wise they add no value. Also, if in the future you’ll be looking to sell that domain name, all the money you’ll get will mostly be based on the traffic that name received and its page rank (if it will be the case).
Dashes are still dropping the financial value, but in regards to SEO, search engines seam to accept them – even if with less value – and with the right on and off page optimization they could rank very well.
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One of the most basic, yet highly effective things you need to consider when doing blog optimization is using keywords to indicate search engine spiders what your posts are about. The more relevant to the page’s content, the better the search engine ranking.
Keyword optimization is part of on-page SEO, which means that it is a part of the optimization you’ll make on your blog’s code.

What you should know right from the start is that keywords can give your blog posts a boost in rankings or get your blog out of the first and most important search results. It all comes down to how well you’re using them and how relevant they are to your content.

Rules of keyword optimization

Since you’re reading this, I have no doubt that you understand how important well-researched keywords are and that you’re willing to make better use of them. These are some of the most important things you need to consider:
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It’s time once again for a SEO Sunday special, dedicated to links, link building, tips and good practices of linking. It is a known fact that links pointing to your blog are meant to increase its value, not only in the eyes of search engines but also when it comes to authority measuring services like Technorati.

Links are a great tool to increase you search engine ranking and your blog’s visibility, but only when the link building is done smart. Sometimes, people that heard about the importance of link building are willing to do whatever it takes to gather as many links to their websites and blogs as possible, and this is potentially damaging their rankings. So, before going any further, I’ll tell you some things that you should stay away from.

Bad link building practices

More and more link building services are promoted on forums these days. I’m sure that many of you have come across those “1000 directory links for $10″ topics. Well, some people have to make a living, and that’s not to blame, but before paying for such services you should consider a few things.
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Here comes another SEO Sunday, but this time, instead of writing another Blog SEO Tips post, I’m going to review and recommend you a free eBook on SEO for WordPress 2.5 Blogs by SEO and PR consultant Mihaela Lica.

I’ve just finished reading her book and believe me, those 44 PDF pages where really worth it, and the best part is that you don’t have to do anything to get the book. No subscription is required, no commenting contest or link backs. You just click the link in her blog post and start reading.
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We keep hearing about “organic traffic” and how important it is for our blogs. Well, organic traffic is the traffic you receive from search engines, based on the level of relevance and optimization of your blog posts. The more relevant for the user’s search term, the higher the ranking in search engine’s results.

Let’s say that you wrote a very interesting and helpful post. You would definitely want it to rank well, and by doing so, attract more traffic to it. This traffic can generate both comments, a base for advertising and also potential backlinks to your post. In short: It’s important.

So, how can you optimize you blog posts? By doing 3 simple things:

1. Optimize your titles;
2. Optimize the post body;
3. Optimize the internal links.

Optimizing the titles

In one of my past posts I’ve told you about the importance of writing SEO friendly titles with the use of H1, H2, H3 tags. And since on single post pages your titles should be listed with H1 tags, search engines will give them maximum attention.

Your post’s title should definitely use the primary keyword, the keyword for which you want the post to rank higher in search results. To decide on your primary keyword and the best form that you could use, you need to run a bit of research on common search habits of users.
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Another quiet Sunday in the blogosphere, as usual. This morning I thought about writing another link share post or a WordPress theme recommendation, but later I’ve decided to break the pattern (since it’s all so quiet) and make Sundays the host of a blog SEO tips series. In this first post I’m going to talk about the importance of using SEO friendly titles (H1, H2, H3) and the right way to do so.

Usual Coding Patterns in WordPress Themes

If you’re even a bit familiar with the WordPress themes, by now you’ve probably took a look at your theme’s files. Blog pages are rendered through an association of a few PHP files with standard names (index.php, archive.php, single.php) with different templates of the theme, based on the content type.

The index.php file usually stands for your home page, also being capable of replacing any other template that hasn’t been already defined. So, if you don’t have a template for search results (search.php), the index file will take over and render your search results page.

Each of these templates includes smaller pieces of code to build up the final result. The most used are header.php, sidebar.php and footer.php.

For now, we’ll limit our attention to the following files in your theme’s folder:

• header.php
• index.php
• single.php
• page.php (not every theme has it)
• archive.php, search.php (not every theme has them)

Optimizing the Header File

Having your primary keyword present at the top of you page it’s very important.
Considering the fact that most themes come with text based logos instead of graphics, we’ll be looking for the <h1> tag in the header.php file.
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