I wrote a post in the past about Link-baiting but at that time I was still getting adjusted with the blog. After reviewing it, I decided to do a better version of that post. I think I didn’t explain everything correctly. Besides this article will be more in depth.

Definition

Link bait is a powerful technique which consist of having interesting content that attracts users to give you a back link, or as Matt Cutts defines link bait: “interesting enough to catch people’s attention.”

Image credits ToonRefugee – Copyright 2008 James Cook

Advantages of Linkbaiting

There are two major advantages of linkbait which can lead to alot more advantages.

Traffic – Traffic to the website increases tremendously due to linkbait. This traffic is insanely high during the early days of the content. Such as my post about 13 ways I promoted my blog to success recieved over 2500 visitors within the first 24 hours. The sudden rush of traffic means:

• Increase in New Subscribers and Readers.
• Increase in People bookmarking your sites because you got more readers now. (More mouth to mouth advertisement).
• Increase in revenue from advertisers.

Search Engine Ranking Positions (SERPs) – Linkbaiting is getting you alot of backlinks. And you should know by now that tons of backlinks mean higher SERPs and higher PR. Your blog pages will start ranking for long-tailed keywords. Which means more traffic to those pages and more traffic to your blog in general. Balkhis rank well for alot of competitive keywords in the industry (Which I can’t share for obvious reasons). But ranking good for some terms gets you alot of new readers. Also higher backlink count, higher pagerank, higher traffic means your site is now worth more, therefore you can charge more for private advertisement.

Linkbaiting Techniques

Linkbaiting is for people who have vivid imaginations. The techniques are unlimited. You just have to open your mind and see them. There are some that are very commonly used among the webmasters. Feel free to use any/all of them at your own discretion.

1. Contests / Giveaways – are one of the best linkbaiting techniques I have seen online. If you haven’t seen most contest ask users to write about the contest to get alot of entries in the drawing. I have seen almost all contests do that. Why? Because you are giving away a valuable prize people will write about it. *For instance if you are to give away a Macbook Air which cost $1800. You get 100 people to write about your contest (Permanent Backlinks). Then you get tons of traffic from social media and a big boost in your readers. You get well worth return for your investment*
2. Free Tools – Creative tools are always a good way to get alot of backlinks and exposure in the webworld. Take iWebtool for example. They got tons of exposure for their tools. People writing about them left and right. This is another good way of linkbaiting.
3. Lists – I have seen people who make lists also tend to get alot of backlinks and traffic. For example 45n5. He made a list of top make money online blogs and he gets tons of backlinks for it. Like this one. I was also speaking with Nabil from Enkay Blog who have a list of top 100 Female Bloggers which apparently gets alot of traffic. If you know of a female blogger nominate them at Nabil’s list.
4. Controversy / Attacks – Controversial posts tend to grab alot of attention toward the site. I wrote once about HostGator committing a federal offense which grabbed alot of attention (Sadly they still haven’t fixed it). Also attacking companies and other webmaster/bloggers can also get you alot of backlinks, but I would prefer not to take that route because you burn your bridges that way.
5. Be the First – I have mentioned it numerously that being first in a niche puts you at a big advantage. It also gives you a boost with linkbaiting also. Even if you are the first one to write about a new story, you will get the results. *For Instance if you are the first one to write about an event, most likely than not you will be the one mentioned at other places*
6. Usefulness / Good Content – Like always a useful post and good content will always grab readers. So if you are a blogger and you write a useful post than most likely than not you will get good traffic to your website or that article. Tutorial posts help alot in these sort of things. Such as my Vlogging 101 Guide.
7. Accomplishments – I have seen that listing about your accomplishment also plays a significant role. It will get you more backlinks and more exposure. Like when I was published in the newspaper or sharing the google PR, Alexa, subscriber count, revenue or any other accomplishment your blog made usually will get you backlinks.

My Opinion

Sometimes people ask me whether Linkbaiting is bad? My answer to them is YES and NO. Some techniques such as attacking others are BAD in my opinion. Whereas techniques such as useful content, contests, being first is not always bad. Linkbaiting can be a very effective promotion technique if used wisely. But abusing it can hurt your reputation.

I know I will get comments that will point out the negatives of linkbaiting, and all I will say to that is like everything there is a good use of linkbaiting and a bad use of linkbaiting.

Note: I have some what used all techniques listed above. They are not mentioned in any orderly fashion. Sometimes I have used the techniques just to gain backlinks other times, backlinks were not even my main concerns, it just kind of got the hit. No these are not the only 7 linkbaiting techniques. There are plenty more that are listed online, and more that comes with your imagination.

What do you think about Linkbaiting?
Do you think its good or bad?
Have you used any of the techniques above? If so share how it worked out for you?
Do you have any other technique which I didn’t list? If so share it with all of us.

Do you really think I have 1000 subscribers. NOO because I am not trying this technique below. My subscriber count has gone up to 658 readers, but atleast I can say that my readers are genuine. The sole purpose of this post is to educate my users about the bad tricks that they shouldn’t try.

Recently there is a buzz in the blogosphere about bloggers teaching their readers how to increase their subscriber. Like this one:

Well all this will get you is a fake number. A number that won’t even matter because at the end of the day your Analytics or Sitemeter will still show 125 visitors a day and adsense= $5 / month. But wait your site displays 2500 subscribers.

Let me think, this is just a temporary hack. One day or another feedburner will fix this. Than what will happen? Your count drops from 2500 to 55. How will you explain that to your users.

If you have seen this video and thinking about trying it. Don’t waste you time!!

Instead of doing this you should concentrate on:

Writing Quality Content
Be active on Social Media
Comment on other’s Blog

Or even try the 13 ways I promoted my blog.

While numbers matter, sometimes it is just too obvious. You have a 3 week old blog with 2500 readers? Doesn’t make sense eh. It is too obvious that you are lying.

Don’t try this technique !! And thats the Bottom line because Syed Balkhi said so. Lol this statement is a rephrasement of famous WWE Start Stone Cold Steve Austin

I have been wanting to share how I have promoted Balkhis in the beginning and still am doing it. I will share all the ways that worked for me and which ways I kept on going with and which roads I have slowed down. I will try to go as much depth into it as I can. Don’t worry about the tip number. Usually 13 is a bad one but in this case as you continue reading it will become the best number of your life.

Before I start, I will mention that I launched Balkhis on Feb 1, 2008 and its 6 months old now. I think this website has grown tremendously. I have 538 subscribed readers via feedburner and numerous that are not subscribed. Balkhis has made me $1923.58 in the month of July from my older posts which contains Affiliate links and adsense. Affiliates were a big part of that income. Direct sales were low but affiliates dominated.

Let me share I did I get to this point. Blog is such a broad subject you can promote it just about anywhere.

Promoting your Blogs through Social Media

First Road that I took toward promoting my blog was Social Media. Ofcourse I had content on the site, but that is the default. I went on many different social media services, some I stayed on and some I didn’t. These social media services includes Digg, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Plurk, Entrecard, Mybloglog, and more which I won’t mention otherwise this post will get too long.

Stumbleupon – One that gets you the most traffic. Well atleast it did for me in the beginning. So apparently I was getting visitors in thousands. Not even a big amount were continuing to be loyal readers. Subscriber count wasn’t increasing. But atleast I was getting the words across. Many of the stumble visitors find your site by just clicking the stumble button in the toolbar and it increases the bounce rate also if you don’t have a targetted user. So it cuts down your adsense revenue. Therefore I don’t stumble alot of my own posts. I let others take the initiative. I have made mistakes with stumble in the past with my other sites by stumbling alot of my own pages and got under the radar. They didn’t ban me but banned the site and I had to talk to them to get it out.

My Advice to people who use stumble: It is a very good tool to get alot of exposure. Specially for contests and others, but it won’t convert to alot of regular readers. Ofcourse learn from my mistake and don’t overdo your own site. Let others stumble it for you if they find it interesting. Stumble is a keeper for special events such as contests and other.

Digg – Digg is definately a keeper. Why? Well because you can digg your own new story if you think other people will be interested in it. Like I will with this story. I don’t digg all of my posts but occationally I do digg my posts. The main advantage that I saw from Digg is the SEO. If you haven’t noticed Digg tends to rank well in Search Engines. I use alot of long-tailed keywords, so if someone searches the main keyword Digg will pop up and through that users will read my site. This actually gain loyal readers and increase your subscriber count. Ofcourse if your post hit the mainpage than you will get alot of traffic. I haven’t wrote one that hit the first page. Maybe this will be one? With your help (Add me as your Friend)

My Advice to people who use Digg – Fellas, definately go ahead and use this social media site. It is very good to promote your blog for obvious reasons I mentioned above. Once again don’t abuse it just use it.

Entrecard – Entrecard was a big hype when I joined it. Heck I even recieved some nice traffic from it and I wrote a review with tips. But it didn’t quiet work out for me in a long run. In the beginning when I wanted more and more users. I took the route to Entrecard. It gained me some readers that are still here on Balkhis who comment regularly. It was just a time eater. You would have to spend that 30 minute constantly to drop cards otherwise you won’t get drop. So this was more like a traffic exchange system. When I stopped dropping cards while I was in Seattle for a week, other people stopped dropping on my site. Therefore I stopped period! Now I am thinking about even removing the entrecard icon. It will be soon gone when I redesign Balkhis. Its a while away…

My Advice to Readers – Definately use it in the beginning. But don’t make it a habit because its not worth your time. In the beginning you want exposure but now that I have 538 readers its not worth my time. I’d rather write quality content.

MyBlogLog – A service from yahoo that displays your recent readers on your blog. I have their widget on Balkhis. But do I use anything else but the widget now? Not really. I kinda got to know some people from there, but not that much beneficial. Once again, I did everything to gain the exposure, but this was just another boat that I abandoned.

My Advice to users – First Read my review of Mybloglog. It is definately a good tool in the beginning because more people see your blog but now I only use it to use the widget. If you want to get more exposure than thats a way to go.

Twitter – One of the major social media that I put sometime in. Well I put alot of time in to following people. If you haven’t seen my twitter profile, I am following 19k people. Well I was trying a technique there. Well to this day Twitter brings me a good chunk of traffic. I am using Twitter Feed to display an excerpt of my recent blog posts so my followers can see it. Which does bring in alot of traffic. I have over 1500 followers on Twitter. Recently in the update my twitter profile also got a PR 4.

My Advice to users – Definately use twitter as it is still one of the largest microblogging site right now. Ofcourse Plurk will catch up soon but until than twitter it is. It has been bringing me alot of traffic so it is a good one. Also it got me some good chunk of readers.

Plurk – Last in the social media list, but definately not the least is Plurk. I am on Plurk alot recently. Why? because I am making alot of new friends and alot of new contacts. This is the best place to find out about new stuff. Share your new posts and others. It is not as big as twitter thats why the potential is even higher. I have been getting alot of designing contracts via Plurk as well as new loyal readers at Balkhis. My ebook did so well and I credit Plurk because alot of my friend wrote to their friends on Plurk about my ebook on How to make a Magazine Style theme in Wordpress. It has recieved over 2k downloads so far. Another good thing that came out of Plurk was that I have been getting alot of natural backlinks from other people who I met on Plurk who now mention me on their blogs. I think it is a must for everyone. I have wrote a Plurk 101 Guide. No advices here. Just join.

That concludes our list of Promoting via Social Media. Definately add me on all the social medias that you see me as.

Promoting your Blog on Forums

When I launched Balkhis, I added the link into all my forum profiles. Signature, Avatar, Homepage and others. Sites like Digitalpoint, Bloggeries are excellent. There are many more forums but not alot will just let you write about your site. You have to put some content of your site. Or even better start a viral thread with your link somewhere in the post. More people reply the better it is for you. Forums help alot in SEO as well. Most forums have very high rankings and they play a good role in the SEO of your site. Alot of users spam forums with their links and thats not the way to go. You will get banned from the forum, and I have seen cases where people get penaltised in Google for posting your links on forum alot. If you just want traffic, a good way is to use shortcut urls. Such as tinyurl.

Promoting your Blog on Blog Directories

You can always submit your sites to general directories but you know niche directories are better. Blog Directories are a good way to begin……………………………

These are just a few tips. Read the full post to see the best one in my experience. [Digg this post if you like it]

Did you ever wonder how do local business survive? I mean we the online businessman and woman have a wide variety of websites that we can advertise on, but local stores and businesses does not. They have to rely on News Papers, Brochures, Businesscards, Pamphlets, advertising via mail and more.

In this post, I will share something that I did as a part of an experiment. I ran various local campaigns. I mentioned it a while ago in my post that I have contracts with stores that agreed to keep my brochures. Well this one is a bit different.

I was writing mails quiet alot recently, therefore I thought it would be interesting if I can get my own stamp. So I took a visit to Stamps.com as Bruce did a while back.

I just used my own 125×125 banner as the stamp, and got some stamps. I sticked them on the envelope, and put one of my brochures inside. And I put one spare one in the envelope, so the people can use it. Now I am waiting for it to convert fully. I did this experiment in the beginning of July. Now towards the end, I saw some people who came to my website and wrote me an email saying it is a very cool way of advertising.

Some wondered where did I get my stamps like that. It is surprising how alot of people don’t really know about it. Now to tell you the truth, my initial investment in this is not alot because I got the envelopes on sale and I have boxes of those. I got free business cards, free brochures, and other free business supplies from Vista Print. I got a good deal from Stamps.com and I am set.

While I am trying this technique in my area, you can try it in your area and see how it works. I think advertising via mail is effective atleast for me. I have gained alot of loyal local readers who contact me via phone and often get me to consult with them.

If you get your stamps, don’t forget you can get free advertisement at Balkhis as well. Just send me some copies to use You will get even more advertisement. It is like a chain eh.

Now if you dont believe it, I work at my local job which is a grocery store, 1 day a month just to stay in the system and hold my shares. I love my dot com life style.

I got a private plurk message at my Plurk which asked me the question:

Syed, How do you make the most out of social media. I see that you have joined Plurk recently and you have a Karma higher then alot of us who started way before you. How do you manage to make the most out of social media?

The question asked above is a bit difficult therefore I will try to take my stab at it and if you guys find that there is something you can add on please put it in the comments.

The key to social media success is excellent time management skills. Any Social Media Network will require you to spend time on it. Now that there are so many Social Media Networks, you have to be very picky. You have to make sure that you join a one that benefits you the most. This is the only rule of thumb in my social media book.

Other than the above, everything is different with each social media. I have went about different ways in different social media networks. In twitter, I went about following people massively, and with the big numbers, I expected to see some results. In Digg, I went about finding the people who digg the most and are very good at digging the topics that I post about, and added them as my friends.

With Plurk it is way different. It is not about how many friends you have. It is about how active your friends are. Because Plurk ranks you through a Karma System. The reason for my success at Plurk is reliant on two things. One, it is still not as big as twitter, so people notice me. Second I made some good friends through whom I got more friends.

With Plurk, you cannot add massive friends. Like I said it goes different with each network. In twitter, I added massive friends and it worked out. If I add tons of friends in Plurk and half of them rejected me, then my Karma will decrease.

I wrote about People like to see Numbers. If you have a high Karma you will get alot of new fans and friends. In twitter, if you have a high number of followers by default you will get more followers. But the trick to get the most benefit is to make your profile mostly oriented towards you and then about your website.

There are some places where you are just experimenting and there will be other places where you would like to stay serious. I am serious at Plurk, but twitter was one of those things where I experimented alot. I am already seeing different results. When I ask someone to digg a post on Twitter, I don’t get much response, but when I ask people to digg on plurk I get a response. Why?

Because when I am plurking, I write about my personal life, interesting things, so people like to read that. So if once in a while, I throw in something like my ebook or ask for a digg. Most likely than not I will get it. Whereas in Twitter, it is my feeds mostly and I go there sometimes. Therefore I don’t get a high response.

Social Media can be a big distraction so you have to make sure when you want to spend time on it. How you want to spend time on it? Who will be the best friend? Once you have that down, you will be on your way to be a King.

If you still haven’t Join PLURK Now