Link Bait vs. Link Love

Link Strategy
As a webmaster, it is important to develop a link strategy. Unless you have a massive brand with a reputation and following, it is unlikely that the masses will simply saturate your site with deep links. What are deep links? Simply put, deep links are direct links to various sub-pages on a website (example: domain.com/subpage.htm)

Search engines value websites that have numerous incoming links spread over a large number of pages within a domain . In other words, a website that has large number of incoming links to various pages within the website will generally rank better than a website that only has links to a single page.

Incoming links are critical to achieving Internet popularity and search engine ranking. There are two popular ways to achieve a massive amount of incoming links, Link Bait and Link Love.

What is Link Love?
Link Love is all about quality. In order to achieve Link Love you must establish authority and credibility. Link Love is all about being a reputable source, often recipients of link love are the first to post breaking news that is vetted and accurate. Bloggers, webmasters and publishers reward sources they genuinely enjoy with link love.

Link Bait is often considered the evil step sister of Link Love.

What is Link Bait?
Link Bait is a hook. It is unique or even controversial content. Common sources of Link Bait include humorous items, accusations, controversy, or even implications. Link Bait is similar to 'shock and awe'; people cannot help but link because they are so intrigued (for good or bad). Link Bait often walks the line between acceptable and unacceptable.

Both Link Bait and Link Love generally result in numerous deep links, as bloggers tend to link to directly to specific articles or issues that are raised.

Not all of us are feeling the Link Love and many are not gutsy enough to use link bait with jaw dropping headlines, so what are some simple ways to garner deep links?

Give Aways
Everyone loves 'free'. Determine what is of value to your website visitors and figure out how you can provide it free of charge. "Free", could be anything, an online calculator, a glossary of industry terms, software, information, statistics or web space. It is best that the free item relate to the content on the website.

Be Different
Do not be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone. Being different or unique attracts attention and links. Step outside the box, be innovative and different with your design, product, or service.

Contribute
Often non-profits will provide links to companies that have assisted them. Contributions do not necessarily need to be financial they can be in the form of free services or products.

Befriend Industry Authorities
Get to know the bloggers and journalists in your space, provide them quality content, previews of releases or other industry information that would be of interest to their readers. Nothing beats quality information.

Participate
Participate in industry forums and newsgroups. Post constructive well formed posts and link back to your websites sub-pages on your site as part of your signature.

Regardless of whether you use Link Love or Link Bait, develop a plan to solicit deep links throughout your website use these tips to improve the quality and quantity of your incoming links.