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Link baiting seems to be all the rage in todays SEO world.  But we still get asked often “what is link baiting?” or “how does link baiting work?”

So in this article we thought we’d give you a brief recap of what link baiting is as well as some of the types of “proven” link baiting there are.

These examples of link building have been used by some of the best in the industry.

What is Link Baiting?

Link baiting is a way to capture links to your site through targeted means.  Just like you’d use different bait to catch different types of fish, your link baiting efforts should be tailored to the audience you want to attract links from.

For example, many SEO firms use link baiting as a way of capturing links from other SEO firms.  And as we know the more relevant, related links a site has the better it should do in the search engines.

I think one of the better link baiters out there today is Rand Fishkin (yes that’s his real name).  His website, SEOmoz.org uses a variety of the best link baiting techniques out there.

So what is it that Rand and his crew does so well?  Well, let’s take a look:

Link Baiting Technique #1 – Lists

SEOMoz is big on lists.  Sure they do all sorts of link baiting but lists seem to drive the most traffic (and get the most notice) for the site.

Now you are probably saying to yourself “great lists – but what kind of lists?” Well that depends again on your audience – who you want to get links from.

In the case of SEOMoz, they are trying to capture links from SEO/SEM sources.  Therefore their lists are geared towards search engine marketings, optimization experts and even web designers.  Let’s take a look at a few of their lists:

5 HTML elements you probably never use (but perhaps should).  Right away you can see this article has a compelling title.  And that’s a big part of the success of your own link baiting.  The title has to catch the eyes of your audience, or it just won’t encourage them to click through to and read (and hopefully link to) your article.

Here’s another aimed at the designer/SEO crowd:  How to use AJAX: 5 Real World Examples.  This is an article on a fairly new web technique.  Many sites are experimenting or using AJAX as part of their arsenal of tools.  So the folks as SEOMoz have tapped into that and provided yet another list.

This also brings up another important point.  Your articles should be relevant and timely.  For example, while A list of top reasons why MSN should enter into the organic search space (for example) may be relevant to the organic search engine optimization space, is not timely.

Straight Answers to 25 SEO Questions is one of those articles which may be geared towards one new to SEO/SEM but it’s also a great way to get links from other SEO firms.

These are just a few of the examples of good link baiting using lists.  We’ve done the same here as well.  We’ve provided a List of quality web directories, Some of the Best Manual Link Building Techniques in one Article, and even My Favorite Helper Applications.  All were lists created not only to help others in the field but also generate traffic (and links) to this site.

But let’s say you aren’t big on lists.  Perhaps you are in an industry that doesn’t really care about lists.  What then?

Link Baiting Technique #2 – Tools

Another thing that SEOMoz.org does well is link baiting through new SEO tools.

Not only do they promote other tools they’ve found useful but they occasionally release their own tools.

Of course spending money to build a tool that is used for link baiting isn’t necessarily a wise decision, however if it’s a tool the industry can benefit from and it’s a good way to build up incoming links to your site, why not use it?

For example, SEOmoz recently released a Page Strength tool which combines a variety of factors to help you determine how “strong” your page is.  While I don’t know for sure, I can almost guarantee that SEOmoz got a ton of traffic for the tool because of the buzz it generated in the SEO community.

Even a tool review works wonders.  We profiled a variety of tools here as well recently.  Again while the goal was to help and inform, it was also to help build incoming links.

And if reviewing tools or building them are just out of the question, consider other useful things you use in your day to day tasks.

For example, with my previous employer I had a spreadsheet that did all kinds of things from scrape a SQL database and format the data, to perform complex calculations on that data.  I’m sure such a spreadsheet could be useful to other firms.

Even something as simple as a checklist could be found useful by others, encouraging them to link to you.  Do you have a link building checklist?  Perhaps you have a checklist of items you look at when performing search engine optimization?  Why not post these checklists in hopes of encouraging incoming links?

Link Baiting Technique #3 – News

Sometimes the best link bait is just plain old news.  But not rehashing what everyone else is saying.  If you’ve got an edge or a unique perspective on something timely, why not post it in an article on your site?

Did you recently interview Matt Cutts or Danny Sullivan?  If so, these would be great link bait.

Of course, in terms of interviews, the higher profile the person is the more likely you will garner a larger number of inbound links, but even if you interview someone with a lower profile it can still help.

Another great way to link bait with news is to report on findings of a case study or research you’ve performed.  If you think you’ve discovered a way to beat Google’s most recent algorithm, then share it!  And I don’t mean running to Webmasterworld or Searchenginewatch forums and sharing it, I mean publish it.  Be the first one out there to show the world that you’ve figured it out.

Granted you will also get detractors out there.  Those who refute your findings but you know what?  Chances are they will link to you too.

You know what they say – any link is better than none at all.

What I’ve shown here are just 3 of the many ways to increase your incoming link count.

Link baiting is proving to be a very successful way of link building with little effort.  And the best part is that most of your links will be the type the search engines want to see.  That is they will be relevant and related to your site.