10 Link Bait Tips for Contractors
by admin on October 24, 2008
in Builder Marketing
For Contractors, having a valuable offer built in to your website can really set you apart from the competition.
One way to do that is to take your expertise and bottle it up into a free report or a free guide of some kind.
I’ve noticed quite a few contractors struggling to find a report they could create that would attract clients.
Here are a few great ideas from devbasu.com that I adapted to fit the construction industry.
- What to Ask Your Contractor Before Hiring Them.
- 10 Ways To Save Money by Using the Right Contractor.
- How to Choose a Good Contractor.
- 5 Totally New Ways of Sprucing up Your Home.
- How to Get 50% Off Your Next Remodel or Addition.
- The Latest and Greatest in Green Building.
- 10 DIY Home Improvement Tips You Can Use Today.
- 15 Factors That Affect Your Construction Quote.
- How to Turn Your House into a Green Home in 6 Months.
- Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Contractor.
Use this list to come up with a great idea for a free downloadable report to offer visitors to your website. Then spend a week writing at least one page per day until you have seven pages. Turn it into a pdf file, send it to your webmaster and you’re done!
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Great post, about giving free downloadable reports. But I didn’t see the relationship with link baiting here.
My understanding of the term “link bait” is to link to other peoples posts for the purpose of getting noticed by them and hopefully getting a return link, or mention on their blog.
Still some great advice for contractors though!
Thanks,
Keith
Hey Keith, thanks for reading!
I get what you’re saying….
Here’s a different definition of Link Bait for you. (I use the term in the positive sense, meaning providing valuable information.)
From Wikipedia:
“Link bait
Link bait is any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. Matt Cutts defines link bait as anything “interesting enough to catch people’s attention.”[5] Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature.
[edit] Link bait in search engine optimization
The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the many metrics used by a search engine ranking algorithm to rank a website. Link bait creation falls under the task of link building, and aims to increase the quantity of high-quality, relevant links to a website. Part of successful linkbaiting is devising a mini-PR campaign around the release of a link bait article so that bloggers and social media users are made aware and can help promote the piece in tandem. Social media traffic can generate a substantial amount of links to a single web page. Sustainable link bait is rooted in quality content.
[edit] Types of link bait
Although there are no clear-cut subdivisions within link bait, many attempt to divide them into types of hooks. This is a short list of some of the most common approaches with brief descriptions:
* Informational hooks – Provide information that a reader may find very useful. Some rare tips and tricks or any personal experience through which readers can benefit.
* News hooks – Provide fresh information and obtain citations and links as the news spreads.
* Humor hooks – Tell a funny story or a joke. A bizarre picture of your subject or mocking cartoons can also prove to be link bait.
* Evil hooks – Saying something unpopular or mean may also yield a lot of attention. Writing about something that is not appealing about a product or a popular blogger. Provide strong reasons for it.
* Tool hooks – Create some sort of tool that is useful enough that people link to it.
* Widgets hooks – A badge or tool, that can be placed or embedded on other websites, with a link included.”
Thanks for the follow up. That clarifies the definition as you were referring to its application here.
I guess I hadn’t thought of link baiting in the context of just putting good content out there that others may want to link to.
Keith