SeaWaves Blog

I used to think you could get away with rehashed content as long as you had enough successful linkbait to back it up. The linkbaits get you a ton of links, which increases your site’s overall rankings in Google including the rankings of the rehashed content.

However, I think this is not the way to go anymore. Why do I think this?

Because the competition in the linkbaiting realm is a lot tougher.

Everyone Is Doing Linkbait

Linkbait is a common thing now. Many webmasters know about it and are trying to do it. Most of the top SEO firms have added linkbait to their services. SEO blogs write about linkbait often.

It used to be that if you got on the front page of Digg, you got a massive amount of links including from popular sites. That’s not the case anymore. Today, a front page story often gets less than 10 quality links.

My theory is that Digg and the other social voting sites have been saturated by linkbait. Many people jumped on the linkbait bandwagon and started submitting their top 7 lists to these sites. This increase in competition made it harder for individual submissions to get noticed even if they did make the front page.

So, what can you do?

Tips For Creating Linkbait 2.0

I think staying away from rehashed content is key. Let’s face it. Most of the time rehashed content doesn’t get many links. By staying away from rehashed content, you escape the “echo chamber” where many sites in a niche are basically saying the same thing.

Also, your site should not be a copycat of another site. Your whole site must have a definite unique hook that sets itself apart from the other sites in your niche.

Some sites especially older sites can get away with rehashed content because Google loves older sites. Also, these sites have built an audience of repeat visitors.

But moving forward in 2008, if you have a relatively new site (less than a year old), your goal should be to make your whole site as unique as possible.

For many niches, this can be done by adding a good amount of multimedia to your site. Most sites don’t use multimedia so video and audio content can make your site much more unique.

We’ve recently started two video blogs, one about hip hop and one about Hollywood gossip. With a little bit of promotion, these blogs have helped us gain high quality links.

We’re also adding pages on our sites which rank the top blogs in a niche every day. For example, I’ll be promoting this list of top 50 hip hop blogs to the hip hop bloggers. I expect to get a couple links because bloggers have egos This type of linkbait works well because it’s a useful resource and most niches don’t have an regularly updated list of top blogs.

Another type of linkbait we’re trying out is contests. We’ve been pretty successful with our dog photo contest and our new car photography contest has already received a couple entries. The great thing about contests is that you get user generated content. This type of content builds rapport between you and your audience.

Our plan here at Sea Waves for our sites is to build linkbait resources that focus on getting repeat visitors, which we believe will lead to many links in the long term. Most of today’s linkbait is “gimmicky” (Thanks, Ryan, for that word) and not really useful. It might drive a lot of short-term traffic but it’s soon forgotten.

Your Turn

Okay, it’s your turn to be creative. What timeless resources can you add to your site that webmasters can link to in the months and years to come?