Thursday, February 21, 2008 by Mistlee
Can Linkbait Be Authoritative?
 By Lee Odden
Link building is crucial, but linkbait tactics that worked this year may not be as effective next year. This session focuses on the underlying quality as well as ingenuity needed to get other websites to link to you early and often. It will also explain how you should approach journalists, bloggers and other authoritative sources to enhance your company's online reputation, whether or not you get links.
Moderator: Anne Kennedy, Manager, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink
Speakers: Alan Webb, CEO, Abakus Internet Marketing, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Creative Director, deMib.com and Brian Turner, Director, Britecorp, Ltd.
First up is Alan Webb from ABAKUS.
Link building is a chicken/egg situation. To get the links you need content but to get the content found and linked to, you need the links.
When you have excellent content you need to kickstart it - get it out there. There are both free and paid methods of doing this.
Free methods include: Social bookmarks, Usenet, company newsletter, blogs, forums. Be sure not to spam forums and blogs. (Does that mean it's ok to spam social bookmarks?) 
Contribute to the forums and blogs before you start recommending specific content.
Fee based options of promoting content include: pay per click, press releases, traditional online ads (banners), email and newsletter marketing services (ads/sponsorships)
Alan's top 10 link bait content:
1. Online tool useful and unique to your field
2. Contests with unusual prize - must be unique/interesting
3. Online games - unique and addictive flash game can work wonders
4. Breaking news - Be the first to post news on a certain topic
5. Lists - Top 10 this or that. Do's or Don'ts
6. Contoversey - Something that goes against norms supported by facts or a study. Be careful if it's negative because it can backfire.
7. Competitions - Fun competition with unique prizes
8. Give aways and freebies. Downloads, tools, gadgets, ebook, etc as an incentive to sign up for a newsletter, RSS. Must be quality.
9. Industry studies, white papers and tutorials. Quality is king as well as uniqueness. Can work with controversey.
10. Cool designs
What's the best day for link bait? April 1st
Gives examples of link bait pages including an online catalog where the products on the home page interact with each other ala Rube Goldberg. Another example is in the "sex sells" category. Last example is a tool.
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