11 replies to this topic

[marqueemoon]

Hi All, I was just hoping run something by you all to get some opinions and advice.

I want to do some linkbaiting for a professional, serious, "not-fun" site. Having looked though the various social sites such as digg, stumble, reddit etc. and seen the kind of stories that get popular (i.e. "you will not believe how cute these cat pictures are", "The 10 best star wars toys" etc etc...) , I have come up with some good link bait ideas and angles for our particular 'serious' niche that I think could attract some interest. The problem is that the linkbait stories I plan to produce, whilst on-topic for our site, could not be placed on our site for fear that they will be inappropriate and may undermine or de-value our services.

The thought I had to overcome this was to register a free blogger or wordpress blog to host the linkbait story and then place a link to our 'serious' site in the sidebar of this blog (maybe with anchor text of the phrase we are hoping to improve rankings for). So although the blog gets all the hits from Digg and all of the links, some of this link juice will then (hopefully) be passed on though to our 'serious' site.

My questions are:

1. Are there any reasons why this wouldn't work?
2. Is this White hat? Will the big G approve of this or frown upon it? Could we be penalised for doing this?
3. Any other comments?

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Marqueemoon


***<EDIT> - looking at some of the other threads in this section I get the feeling I may have posted in the wrong section. Please feel free to move this post if this is the case and accept my apologies</EDIT>***

[Jill]

1. Are there any reasons why this wouldn't work?

Unless you have already built up a large network of friends on digg and reddit, etc., don't expect anything you post to go viral.

2. Is this White hat? Will the big G approve of this or frown upon it? Could we be penalised for doing this?

For what? Creating a blog post? What's to approve of or disapprove of?

3. Any other comments?

While what you're thinking of sounds like a good idea in theory, I think you'll find it's a whole lot easier said then done. I don't mean to discourage you or anything, but if it was as easy as you think it might be, everyone would be doing it, and then of course, it would be hard again!

[marqueemoon]

Thanks for your reply Jill,

Unless you have already built up a large network of friends on digg and reddit, etc., don't expect anything you post to go viral.

I know what you mean. In fact www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/03/want-on-the-digg-home-page-thatll-be-1300/ there is a story on page two of digg today about this (It was on pg 1 earlier.) Is Digg really this corrupt, is it nigh-on impossible to receive a reasonable amount of interest without the intervention of power diggers? Or, IF my linkbait is good enough, could it be possibly be done? Needless to say, I don't have the massive network of friends. Would there be any value in receiving say 10 diggs per story?

For what? Creating a blog post? What's to approve of or disapprove of?

I see what you are saying. I just thought that's its pretty transparent to anyone who knows about SEO that the blog has been set up for the purposes of accumalating link equity and then passing it on to our 'serious' site. I wondered if a manual review would spot this, frown upon it and penalise?

Edited by chrishirst, 03 September 2008 - 04:59 PM.
live link edited. See forum rules.

[chrishirst]

I just thought that's its pretty transparent to anyone who knows about SEO that the blog has been set up for the purposes of accumalating link equity and then passing it on to our 'serious' site

You know, no matter how many times I see this put forward as a "reasonable idea" I still don't get it.

What is wrong with using that "stuff" on the real site and getting the links to there? Instead you think it's better to get the links to somewhere else and dilute the value to the site you are trying to promote.

NOW if you were putting the Real Content on the main site, and using a blog post to promote the Real Content, it might make some sense.

[nethy]

You know, no matter how many times I see this put forward as a "reasonable idea" I still don't get it.

Well the idea is that you want to keep a degree of separation between your site A & site B. You don't want 100% association. Doesn't have to be under the radar completely (but it can be).

For example: Say Jill wants to start a blog dealing with some area that is unappealing (or downright inappropriate, watch it Jill ) for HR's important audience (her clients). It could be about how to make money flipping websites, or starting an ebay drop shipping business or something else. She could/should make it seperate site. Could be associated. But you don't want your clients to think of you as the how-to-make-a-quick-buck-guru/corporate-SEO-training-centre.
* Note: HR is not a great example because it's a broad church that comes with being a 'community'. Also HR is a popular site that wouldn't be much affected by links from another blog. But it could apply to many of the competitors.

The above is perfectly reasonable if you think your 'link bait site' will actually be successful enough at baiting links. BTW, if it is you'll be concerned about how to get visitors (not just PR) to from site to site.

[marqueemoon]

You know, no matter how many times I see this put forward as a "reasonable idea" I still don't get it.

What is wrong with using that "stuff" on the real site and getting the links to there? Instead you think it's better to get the links to somewhere else and dilute the value to the site you are trying to promote.

NOW if you were putting the Real Content on the main site, and using a blog post to promote the Real Content, it might make some sense.

I appreciate what you're saying and in an ideal world I understand that it's better to put the linkbait content on the same site whose rankings I am trying to improve. However in reality there are numerous things that prohibit doing this.

As an example, If my site was selling the highest quality designer mens suits (it's not btw, just the first thing that came to my head) would visitors to my site want to see an article on the "Pictures of the 10 most hideous suits ever worn in public"? Is that going to inspire them to go and spend 5k on one of my designer suits? Probably not. It's not appropriate to have this on my designer suits website and would probably just devalue the product if anything. But would Johnny Public be interested in linking to this article on his personal blog or in a forum or whatever because it gave him a quick laugh? Perhaps.

[chrishirst]

As an example, If my site was selling the highest quality designer mens suits (it's not btw, just the first thing that came to my head) would visitors to my site want to see an article on the "Pictures of the 10 most hideous suits ever worn in public"? Is that going to inspire them to go and spend 5k on one of my designer suits? Probably not. It's not appropriate to have this on my designer suits website and would probably just devalue the product if anything. But would Johnny Public be interested in linking to this article on his personal blog or in a forum or whatever because it gave him a quick laugh? Perhaps.

So, what's wrong with a little imagination.

Given the scenario above:
Headline is:
10 people who DIDN'T buy their suits from US!!

Show the pictures etc and link to something ON YOUR SITE that you would consider more suitable and explain why.

How does that devalue anything? It gets your site some new and related content, will get visitors to YOUR site not another site that you hope people will then go to your site from.

The one thing EVERY marketer needs, is some imagination and the vision to do something just a little different. Otherwise it's just another boring site selling suits!

[Jill]

Very creative, Chris! When I first read marqueemoon's post, I thought he/she had a good point, but you're exactly right. No reason why one couldn't do it that way at all!

[omahonydonnelly]

A late reply to this post -- If the content is not suitable for your site, will it really bring in visitors to your site that are actually suitable; i.e. going to become customers? I'd spend the time working on something more akin to the style of the site and your target market. More hits doesn't always = more sales.

[austk]

I would call this side promotion. Its like you almost have to create a subsite to attract traffic and that site must prmote the real target site. i would use Youtube if possible. Youtube is a very easy send without all the buzzy twitter signup logjam.

[nethy]

My two cents:

You cannot just "SEO" or "Conversions Optimise" any site 'as is'. The same goes for the general approach. You cannot have a successful blog ofr forum without hosting some content that you do not control or do not agree with. If you see yourself as 'serious' in the sense that you do not want to be associated with a humorous campaign, well then... You get the point.

Chrishirst's idea is great. But it's not something that every type of business wants to be associated with. For what it's worth I think it's wrong. I think a lot of what people 'know' about branding from the magazine worldf the 80s-90s is wrong. The kind of organisation that can post a humorous post without igniting any fires or jumping through hoops is at an advantage these days. But most are still not those kinds of companies. If you work for yourself, great. Do what you want. But as an employee, consultant or whatever, you can't advice the suit shop to sell dresses. You can, but it's probably not useful.

What you are trying to do is create a buzz around something you don't want to be associated with? That's no good. That's leg-irons. If on the other hand, they want to keep the suit site all suit shopping but don't mind having other properties with different content, that's a different story.

[projectphp]

If you don't want to be assocaiated with teh content, why would you want to be associated with the content?

Makes no sense to me.

But, and here I agree with Nethy, sure makes it easier to sell!