The first time I saw the term link baiting I thought, “This stinks. Everyone’s already telling me I need higher Page Rank, better SEO, a flashier web design, better RSS feeds, and a Wordpress blog. Now I’ve got to buy waders?” But, being the kind of gal who likes to know what the trends are before I decide not to conform to them, I sought out posts on this whole link baiting thing. And I was a little disappointed.

All the posts said “Write posts people want to read.” Um (if I may bring back a word from the ’80’s) duh?

Some said make lists. Some said cause controversy. Some said study your stats to see when most people visit. All of this with a goal of getting stumbled, dugg, linked to across Blog World so we’ll rank higher, look better, bring in better ads. But for what? Our fickle friend Google can take it all away tomorrow. Does anyone who reads our blogs really care what Google says about us anymore?

Link bait, to me, seemed like a bigger deal than it was. Like the term problogger, it sounded important until I realized it wasn’t.

For bloggers whose ad sales are based on Page Rank, I say conform away. Grab your poles, bait those hooks, reel in the biggest fish you can get. My fisherman’s hat is off to you.

But for bloggers who blog for the sake of blogging? Let’s hope we’re already writing some posts people want to read. If others link to those posts, pass them through the social media highways, cut them up and serve them for supper, fabulous. If not, is it a loss worth losing sleep over?

I recently read a post by Mark Knowles at Blogging Tips on link baiting. Talking about a post that brought him a good amount of Stumble traffic, he said, “Apart from the fact that this is what I actually believe, I really wrote this to get it out of my system.”

As I commented to Mark, these are what I call “inspired rants.” These are the types of posts that draw in the most traffic on my blogs too. Maybe the best link bait, just like the best ranked web content, is best because it was constructed for success by accident?

I don’t know. I’ve never been a good fisherman. I’ve always enjoyed holding the pole and looking out onto the water more than I’ve enjoyed reeling in the fish. And on the rare occasion I catch something, I usually throw it back.

Have you had any success with linkbaiting? Was your success planned or accidental?

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