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“This isn’t what I was searching for, How did I end up here?” If these questions have ever arisen after using a search engine than you have witnessed the powers of Link Baiting. Link Baiting is a controversial subject around the Internet Marketing World. Ethical questions arise in its process and usage. Most seem to agree that it is a dangerous tactic but can produce great benefits.
Link Baiting is the simple process of bait and catch. Providing the bait is the hardest part and is where the ethical questions form. Link baiting at its simplest can be writing a controversial story that is very subjective and hoping that all the sharks out there smell your story, or bait, and come at it like a pack of wolves. This story can be completely one sided and most may not agree with it, but it’s the simple fact that those sharks out there are just waiting for the next meal, and even if they tear you up, your name and brand is the new breaking news. You allow yourself to be the hysterical fisher that decided to wrangle with the big fishes. Either they will love it or hate it, but in some instances it is a win win. You may get swallowed by the sharks but in an unknown way you have caught the attention of many more excluding the sharks.
Other Link Baiting techniques include give-a-ways. SEOMoz posted an article that talked about a Plumbing Company giving away controversial political t-shirts. You may ask how this strategy can produce any results at all that would benefit plumbing. In this approach the t-shirt give away is the bait, and the catch is how you enter the contest. This plumbing company only recognized individuals as contestants if they linked back to a site the Plumbing Company owned.
The benefit to all of this is that you are creating links back to your site which increases your natural ranking in the search engines. The danger in tactics like this is search engines frown upon unethical link baiting schemes. Search Engines have been known to remove websites from their indexes that could be involving themselves in link baiting activities.
However, some like the thrill of the wild side some feel the benefit outweighs the risk of being caught. This brings up the question of could this work as a Real Estate Marketing strategy? Steps into creating a link baiting ploy start off with your bait. Your catch is the same every time, having others link back to you which in turn creates awareness of you and your brand, and also producing links back to your site. Becoming creative and introducing ideas that will either have you mauled by the sharks or praised by the bloggers is what distinguishes whether or not Link Baiting can work for you.