In late December of 2011, HTML5 cheat sheets, which we originally created for WebDesignLedger (WDL), were shared by Google on their Google Developers profile. WDL has 74k+ Twitter followers. Google Developers has 65k+ users in their circles. Together, their promotion increased our referral traffic for that day by 300%. Since then, we’ve experienced a steady stream of traffic and incoming back links. This was definitely a link bait win for us.
I want to share with you how I turn content like our HTML5 cheat sheets into link bait. It’s a straightforward process and a model to emulate for anyone that’s aspiring to land some pretty sticky web content of their own.
The Brainstorming Session
Inviting creative outside-the-box thinkers as well as pragmatists to the brainstorming pow wow can help you come up with more exciting content ideas and effective ways to getting it pushed to the right audiences.
Don’t feel like you have to recreate the wheel every time. If you’re running out of new content ideas, try revisiting infographics that you tweeted in the past, articles you bookmarked, free tools, widgets you built, etc. and see if you can improve them in a valuable way.
Actually, the HTML5 cheat sheets are a perfect example of improving something already created. The idea started when a coworker forwarded me an HTML5 article that contained a wonderful cheat sheet. It had useful information and a great design, but I thought it could be more comprehensive and print-friendly.
A light went on in my head! What about creating a comprehensive cheat sheet that is print and web-friendly! Our graphic designer did some research and discovered that other cheat sheets tried to accomplish these objectives but with little success. We were definitely onto something. Now we just needed to develop it!
Developing Valuable Content
Before creating content, take time to really examine why your content is going to be valuable. This preliminary step provides better focus and direction during the content development stage.
Personally, the HTML5 cheat sheet is an instance of learning this lesson the hard way. I knew I wanted it to be comprehensive, print/web-friendly but I focused too much on its layout and design. I neglected to consider logistical elements such as background color, dimensions, if the graphic was proportionally correct, etc.
The first draft of the cheat sheet that I received from our graphic designer had a clean design and a robust color scheme, but it still had some major issues. For starters, it had too much information on it, which led to barely readable text. Its black background drained our printer of ink. The cheat sheets also became distorted when printed on certain paper sizes. I could already foresee the criticism coming from web developers and designers.
We couldn’t go live with this version of the HTML5 sheet and needed to drastically overhaul its design. The background color was an easy fix but organizing all of its information was going to take some time. Our graphic designer laid out some ideas. However, we still couldn’t get all the content to fit properly.
In the end, we decided that we would divide the cheat sheets into three parts, which could easily be printed on legal paper or larger. It turned out to be a good decision, but it definitely taught me the importance of taking some time before developing content to deeply examining why and how content is going to be valuable and well-received.
Know Who You’re Writing For
Try to familiarize yourself with the guidelines set by a publisher before creating content. Almost every popular and highly authoritative website has a particular tone, scope of topics, amount of words, limitations on self-promotion, etc. that must be maintained. Trust me, it’s never fun “completing” an article only to find out that an editor won’t publish it until it meets their standards.
With all said, sometimes good content is good content. If you have fantastic content in your possession and you’re absolutely certain that you don’t want to change it to meet a publisher’s standards, then consider publishing the content as is on your website and finding the right promoter to direct traffic to it. I’ll discuss this part later.
Lastly, make sure your content is factually correct, lacks grammar and spelling errors, coded correctly (if it’s interactive content), and of course has a well-polished design.
Finding the Right Publishers and Influencers
Your content is only as good as who’s publishing and promoting it. Many link builders often choose not to concern themselves with critical relationships that go into creating link bait. This only hurts your chances of gaining plenty of social mentions and new linking opportunities.
To exact a list of potential publishers, I regularly use Google search operators like the following:
- [industry] + intext:write for us
- [industry] + inurl:”write-for-us”
- [intitle:industry] + inurl:”contact-us”
Here are some great resources for learning about other search operators:
These days, publishers and social influencers are communicating more than ever on Twitter/Google+, perhaps because these two social networks are valuable tools for communicating with their followers. Typically, my first point of contact with a potential promoter of content is through a Tweet. Email addresses are important, too, but they serve a different purpose. I’ll explain that later.
If I need to get in contact with a potential promoter of my content (especially one with a substantial social media presence), I make it a priority to find their company Twitter handle and their Google+ profile, and any of their colleagues. I recommend that you do the same. Definitely engage with them, add them to your circles, retweet their content, +1 it — bottom line, get them familiar with you.
Ask for their personal contact information once you’ve developed a good rapport and feel comfortable asking them to review your content. Many content editors are pressured to produce/post a certain amount of content per week or month, so checking out your content is something they most likely will consider. If they pass on your content, ask them if they could forward you to other websites/influencers that might want to publish it.
After a publisher agrees to move forward with posting your content, I’d check the following to ensure that your content has a real shot at becoming link bait:
- Your content has optimized title tags, H1s and H2s, URLs, meta descriptions, alt image tags, link attributes, page load times, etc.
- Ask if it’s possible to publish your content on a day that receives the most traffic. Mondays and Tuesdays are usually those days.
- See if the publisher will provide a list of followers/fellow publishers who might want to promote your content to their followers as well.
- If possible, host the content on your website and have the promoter write a blog post that directs traffic to you.
- Make sure your web hosting plan can handle an uptick in traffic and resources.
- Be patient and flexible with publishers especially if it’s your first time working with them. If you’re easy to work with, publishers usually like to make sure your content launches without a hitch.
- Confirm the publication date and time of article. I’ve actually missed perfect link bait opportunities because I wasn’t told by a publisher that the content was already posted.
- Check to if publisher will allow HTML code that can be copied and pasted for easy sharing.
- Include a branded logo on infographics/images as well as any sources you used.
Tracking and Monitoring Social Media Buzz
Now the fun part, broadcasting and monitoring the buzz that’s stirring around in your industry. Determine which conversations you want to insert yourself into to widen your reach. Here’s your chance to go hash tag crazy. I strongly recommend using these social media tips:
- Follow, publicly list or ‘circle’ influential people who retweeted your content and the people they follow.
- Send personalized tweets/direct messages to potentially good promoters to avoid sounding like spam.
- Tagging people is absolutely important to being seen and tracking on Google+, so definitely incorporate ‘+’ or ‘@’ signs when promoting your content to possible promoters.
- If possible, avoid using URL shorteners and make sure your URLs are descriptive. This is not only for branding purposes, it also helps build trust with people.
Tying it All Together
As you should have caught on to by now, creating link bait is a basic yet very involved process. Each component of the process has several large and small factors that can ultimately impact your content’s chances of becoming legitimate link bait. This is the process that has provided me the most success; it certainly attracted Google Developers’ team. I hope the information I shared helps you land sticky web content of your own on the web, or at the very least, sparks a discussion of other link builders best practices.
Brian Flores is the SEO for InMotion Hosting.You can follow him on Twitter @BrianAFlores.
