Comments on: Link Bait: Be Careful What You’re Fishing For…

By: jack

jack — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:38:09 +0000

If you have a good quality site with useful and compelling information you already have a site prime for baiting links. Great content is paramount to a successful link baiting campaign.

By: On the subject of transparency…

On the subject of transparency… — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:55:18 +0000

[...] blog post was very helpful in turning things around. In fact, it was nothing more than pure link bait in my [...]

By: Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:44:45 +0000

I’m glad it was timely & helpful, Sheryl – thanks so much for passing it on. I hope it proves resourceful for the group in getting some link-worthy ideas for your content map!

By: Sheryl Loch

Sheryl Loch — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:36:13 +0000

Hey Lynn,
Thanks so much for the links about baiting.
I was on a team call about 2 hours ago and that is exactly what we were talking about but, none of us were sure as the ‘best’ way to go about it.

I have sent them here to get started so, we can come up with some ideas.

Thanks for helping us out!

By: Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:34:06 +0000

LOL Gary

For the record, I never said it… I just linked to it

Bad enough, huh? hehe

By: Gary McElwain

Gary McElwain — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:13:57 +0000

I think stunned says it all for me.
I never thought I’d be reading about master baiting on a marketing blog!

Just look where this web2.0 is leading us,
hook, line, and sinker.

Gary McElwain

By: Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:14:47 +0000

Thank you Eren

@Elijah – thx for the link, I missed that one so I’ll check it out. And no – I’m not following you (lol) but if you ever run into anything you want to suggest for possible discussion here, feel free to send me an email

By: Eren

Eren — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:18:02 +0000

I laughed for about 5 minutes after reading this post Lynn. I love your ironical humor;-)
Great tips too- gets me thinking of creative ways to write content.

By: Dan Reinhold

Dan Reinhold — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:11:02 +0000

Good points, Scott and Jason!

A little more thought into what they write would help a whole lot of people.

Positive comments about negative posts are the better way to go…

By: Landing A Live One With Link Bait

Landing A Live One With Link Bait — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:05:10 +0000

[...] Link Bait Bites Back [...]

By: Elijah

Elijah — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:32:10 +0000

Hey, great to see Moffatt on here!

Lynn I feel like your following me around sometimes because I will be researching, or brainstorming on a topic and you almost always write a post related to my thoughts within 24 hours.

I was astounded by a particular “master-baiter” move displayed by shoemoney a while back. A simple post that completely put plentyoffish.com and Markus Frind on blast. Shoe ripped into him relentlessly, made crazy remarks, with no regard. I read through the 30 something + comments and thought to myself “wow, this is one big strategic circle jerk”… The amount of back links he got was just short of riding on the special bus. Brilliant, but questionable.

http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/05/08/plentyoffish-marketing-101-when-all-else-fails-just-lie/

I don’t know what to think. But I’m with J-mo overall. I tend to stay away from master-baiting…

By: Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:18:10 +0000

LOL Stephanie – I imagine so

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:15:06 +0000

Somewhat off topic, but love the picture. My 3 year old son has an 8-foot long flexible pencil he calls his ‘hooker’. Lots of jokes to be had with that one.

By: Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:48:30 +0000

Excellent point Jason – definitely something to consider when developing your content strategy. Its all about WHO you attract…

By: Jason Moffatt

Jason Moffatt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:43:12 +0000

hahaha,

You said “master baiter”.

I remember when I was on the fishing boat, I had graduated to a “master baiter”.

They say I was the best “master baiter” they had ever seen!

Anyhow,

One piece of link bait that I’ve seen quite often recently is when people slam guru’s and successful people online.

And in my opinion, I think this is a bad move most of the time.

Here’s why…

It attracts a low quality viewer/prospect who is very likely to be a whiner himself, and the likelyhood they’ll refund skyrockets.

Now I understand some people’s frustrations online, but putting the blame on Guru A, or Guru B, only seems to attract Refunder A and Refunder B, and Big Hassle Customer A & B too.

I’d rather focus on the positive things that people do online and attract others that feel the same way.

Sure, there’ll always be some hustlers and swindlers online, but I doubt I’ll be spending much of my time link baiting those people because the following that comes with it is often more hassle then it’s worth in my opinion.

I think people should just learn to write something interesting instead of having to always result in link baiting.

Cheers and beers,

J-Mo