Link Bait

There is no question that linking is an important way to get traffic to your site. Linking also helps grow your popularity among the search engines.

One good way to create links made to your site is through link baiting.
Link bait is simply bait that you place on your site to entice others to link to it. The idea is to have other sites point traffic in your direction.

Creating link bait requires having some content that is worth linking to. This content must be fresh or stand out in some way to make it attractive. You also need to consider how you will get the 'fish' to the bait.

To get bloggers to the bait, you need to establish a genuine communication means with them. To do this, you can do some of the following;

• discuss your bait in forums
• announce your post in networks that you belong to such as Facebook and Twitter
• get your post bookmarked talk on sites such as del.icio.us or Digg
  
• share linking with another blogger
  

Your content or reason for interest in the linked to item needs to be worth while.

• Make it a valuable resource or listing such as a list of websites with something in common
• Research or information that you have developed
• Contests and Give Aways
  
• Events
  
• Something that you are an expert about
  
• Give something of value for free
  

Getting linked to is a good way to grow your popularity. It can also be a valuable form of networking.

Be sure to acknowledge those linking to your site. You can leave a comment or link back to their site in exchange.