A quick post on Baiting for blogs. This won’t be a guide, for a good reason. I am Rubbish at it. I can do one method okay, which I will cover here, but it’s probably the only method I can do to some measure of success. I will discuss the other forms here as well.
1. To Linkbait - Link Out
For your average link baiter, the best way to link bait is by aggressively linking out to various sources. Find 5 or 10 blogs related to a post you are writing, and bonus points if you can link it into a topic you are writing (for example, is there a world cup soon? Why not list your favourite blogs from each country participating). Check my previous post on BBC Go & SEO for a (fairly) good example of tying in a news event to blogs.
2a. It’s Nice To Be Important, But It’s More Important To Be Nice? Nah.
Something I don’t agree with is a post that was on Problogger’s blog - which I used to push my BBC Go & SEO post mentioned above. I put a link in my post, and - considering the popularity of Darren’s blog, and the relevance of the comment, I thought I’d get at least one comment that wouldn’t find itself into the Akismet spam list.
Alas, no.
Not entirely sure why I did. Worse of all a comment that was actually heavily critical of a blogger resulted in a couple of posts linking back to said blogger. Maybe I should just make unfound
2b. So To Comment Bait, Don’t Go For The Big Boys
Unless you believe that all traffic = good traffic, and have skin thicker than the Berlin Wall (when it was standing), go for smaller blogs. I love comments, and do read each and every one of them on my blogs, and I’m sure Darren - being a father, business owner and god knows what else - doesn’t. You’re more likely to get a response.
3. The best way to bait bloggers - Twitter!
Seriously. It’s great way to attract readers. Why? Because I believe people are more human on there. I usually automatically follow people who are from the local area, and my first twitter is usually about the weather in the morning. My usual twitters will be about things I don’t cover on here, and many of other people’s are. Sure, it’s not exactly the greatest way of getting instant sticky traffic, but over time, you’ll be seen as a human, which will attract other bloggers who - last time I checked - just so happened to be human.
What’s your methods of baiting bloggers?
on Nov 14th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I find that the best way to bait bloggers is to contact my real-life blogging friends, ask them to comment on a post that I know they will find interesting, and then to post about and link to their comment on their blog, and invite their readers to give their own opinions. I always have a huge increase in traffic and a few comments, and usually one or two new subscribers. Although I can’t directly return the favour in the form of a blog post about their comment, I do reward people with deep links (and links to their comments/blogs), as an aside to my regular posts. (It also gives my blog a bit more of a personal touch as I tend mostly to post research summaries.)
I have a few readers from social networking sites but I think the majority comes from my long-term, real-life relationships I’ve built with friends and colleagues over the last twenty years. Some of these people are minor celebrities in their fields and they’ve even occasionally posted my blog link to high-traffic email lists, and that also generally produces a long-term spike as people tend to discuss things in email lists ad infinitum!