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Who Is Linkbaiting Whom?

Posted by admin on December 28, 2006 in Link Theory, SEO Theory

Rand Fishkin invited me to blog for SEOmoz knowing that I would present an alternative point of view on search engine optimization. He took some heat over the decision but he frankly admitted that regardless of whether he agreed with me on every point (and we don’t agree on every point) that my posts drew in links and visitors. Now, I never set out to be a contrarian in any community. It’s just that when I see people missing some of the neat things about search engine optimization (or J.R.R. Tolkien, Xena, or even Harry Potter) I want to share what I see.

It’s easy to be a contrarian in SEO anyway because there is hardly any consensus on anything. Even if we could boil all SEO theories down to two camps, pro-links and anti-links (and there are no such camps because pretty much everyone recognizes you need at least some links), you would find differences of opinion in each group.

For example, among pro-linkers you still have people advocating volume: get every link you can. But now you have people advocating “quality links” — which regardless of you think of the contept is still a step toward selectivity. These are diametrically opposed points of view, but within the selective pro-linkers you’ll find people advocating the use of reciprocal linking and link brokerage services and people who would never use those resources (again).

Consensus breaks down quickly, but people are so hungry for it that we scour the Web every day (or week) in search of those elusive compilations of opinion that help us build an illusion of consensus. The “collective SEO wisdom” is about as ephemeral an idea as you can describe. Even when generally like-minded people give presentations in the same sessions at the major conferences, they often cover completely different angles (which is good for everyone).

So, there I was, earlier this year, link-baiting people with SEO theory over at the SEOmoz blog — not trying to yank anyone’s chain, just trying to share some neat information. So far as I can recall, only one person actually complained openly about my posts. Some of my usual theoretical opponents actually complimented several of my posts. And I chose my topics carefully to complement what I felt were Rand’s core principles while being a bit contrarian.

That is, I wrote about link building, linking theory, and some of the fringe topics of SEO (such as semantic search). Doing the occasional vanity search for references to my name gives me as much (or no more) of a kick as it gives other people. I’d rather be appreciated by one person than completely ignored, and I think that is a perfectly natural desire. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of my early SEOmoz posts made it into an expanded top ten (local search engine optimization blog posts for 2006) list.

Now, anyone who has been reading this blog regularly may recall I just dissed top ten lists in Walking With SEO Gurus: How Not To Get Trampled. I wrote:

All the “Top 10″ lists, “101 ways to pick your nose”, and “5 fatal flaws of SEO” style posts are pretty much fluff, too. Top 10 (or Top 5) lists are just boring wastes of time….

But wait! I’ve just found myself in a top 10 list.

People are rarely bored by themselves. If you’ve ever had any formal sales training, you’ll recall that the best way to open up a prospect is to ask the other person about him- or herself. We love to talk about ourselves. We love to search for our names on the Internet. And if we’re actively marketing ourselves (as I have been for years), we’re constantly searching for our names.

So I found “Mike the Internet Guy’s Blog” had included me in what actually looks like a better-than-usual Top 10 list (better because it mentions me? maybe — but he didn’t stop at 10 items, and I thought that was cool, too). Local search is a fascinating topic because it’s still an evolving industry. Main search is sort of blase. All the old-timers have bundled up their formulas and methodologies. We can turn out new sites and get them ranked pretty quickly. Yawn.

But Local Search — that’s still an expanding search space. New technologies are being introduced every month, new services are springing up every quarter. Google has not yet conquered the lion’s share of Local Search. It’s more challenging.

And one of my handful of Local Search articles made it onto someone’s Top 10 list. He linked to me. I was so tickled, how could I not link back?

And that is the truth about link baiting: it appeals to vanity and passion. If you believe the whales are endangered by pyrotechnics and someone writes a blog post (that you stumble across) about how pyrotechnics are killing Orcas, why would you NOT link to the blog post? It serves your agenda. It vindicates your point of view.

Of course, some people might say that link baiters also tickle fancies with intriguing new concepts. Sure, but aren’t the people who respond to “latest gizmo-and-widget” bait passionate about emerging technology and ideas? Often they are. So the secret to successful link baiting is the same as the secret to successful writing: you create your content for your audience.

When I was writing weekly articles on The Lord of the Rings, I knew who my audience was and what they wanted to read. I usually stayed away from the literary theory and focused on the meatier details of the imaginary world of Middle-earth. Most fans want to know more about its history, peoples, and minutiae than anything else. To this day, more than 4 years after I stopped writing for Suite 101, I still see new links to my articles there.

When you’re hot you’re hot, as an old song used to say. But you’re only hot if you appeal to passionate interest. It doesn’t have to be vanity interest. In fact, most link baiting seeks a broader audience than people who are seeking vindication. But if you want to pick off niche markets as if you were winning a turkey shoot, you can appeal to those little groups seeking vindiication and after a few dozen posts you’ll find you have a lot of inbound links from different sources.

That is exactly how I was able to build up the diverse link profile for Xenite.Org through the years. It offers content for fans of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Xena, Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Andre Norton, GEICO commercials, Salsa dancing, Battlestar Galactica, etc. When I started diversifying my content, I did it because I had more than a few personal interests and I just wanted to share my passion with other people. But being passionate about so many topics taught me a valuable lesson: you can find a lot of like-minded people by thinking like many different people.

We’ll walk this path again. Maybe after I get enough links….