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Vitaly Friedman Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. Vitaly is writer, speaker, author and editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine. He runs responsive Web design workshops, online workshops and loves solving complex UX, front-end and performance problems in large companies. Get in touch.

May 28, 2007
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Golden Rules of Linkbaiting

General 478 Business 238 Copywriting 12 SEO 14

Link baiting is not evil. Although some bloggers tend to go beyond any ethical considerations in their attempts to enforce as many reciprocal links as possible, the term itself stands for a completely organic nature of the Web - actually, something that has already been here for a while. Traditional link building, used to be bounded with Search Engine Optimization, is now being extended with...

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Link baiting is not evil. Although some bloggers tend to go beyond any ethical considerations in their attempts to enforce as many reciprocal links as possible, the term itself stands for a completely organic nature of the Web - actually, something that has already been here for a while. Traditional link building, used to be bounded with Search Engine Optimization, is now being extended with the aspect of so-called Social Media Optimization - with Digg, StumbleUpon, Netscape, Del.icio.us & Co. on the bandwagon. Driving traffic to your site has become easier, but requires through-out strategies and understanding some basic rules of useful content and effective content marketing.

The term linkbaiting doesn’t necessarily reflect this aspect of organic growth on the Web; in fact, as suggested by Darren Rowse, its negative connotations rather expose the idea of clever tricks, traps, deceptions or even frauds, which are supposed to manipulate content editors in linking, even if they don’t really want to.

Mostly that’s not what link baiting is really about. Instead, Linkbaiting is about gaining reputation, finding your niche, writing useful and creative content, presenting your ideas, publishing them on the Web and finding people who might actually use them. You won’t find your readers if you concentrate on building links; you will be able to build links organically if you concentrate on your readers. Moreover, you can gain reputation if and only if you focus on your readers. This is one of the basic principles of successful blogging.

Over the last months we’ve received many e-mails, in which you’ve asked us to dig into the issue of linkbaiting and examine the most successful techniques, strategies and rules of effective link building. Perfectly aware that some techniques may lay in the grey zone or even behind it, we’ve selected only those that aren’t based upon some dubious methods of generating links, but on smart, fair and sincere strategies to find the audience and present your ideas effectively.

Furthermore, we’ve selected only those rules we would actually apply according to our philosophy. Still, we don’t necessarily endorse all of the presented ideas listed below, and some of them can be used in both appropriate and inappropriate ways. Using them, make sure you keep the Web clean, offer something valuable rather than the content written purely for the sake of link buildung.

We care about the quality of content in the Web; be aware that you carry the full responsbility for every article and post you publish online - handle your ideas and the time of your visitors with respect.

Let’s take a look at non-trivial and most effective rules, principles, techniques, strategies, methods, examples and resources related to link baiting. Among other things this overview will cover the aspect of effective copy writing as well. Golden rules of linkbaiting - in a comprehensive overview.

What is Linkbaiting?

“Linkbait is essentially a piece of content placed on a web page - whether it’s an article, blog post, picture, or any other section of cyberspace - that is designed for the specific intention of gathering links from as many different sources as possible.”
“Linkbait describes a variety of practices - all of which seek to generate incoming links to a website or blog from other sites.” [Problogger]
“Linkbaiting refers to content, videos, images or anything on the web that is created with the intention of increasing links to a website.
“Linkbait focuses on creating unique, useful and provocative content that people respond to by linking to it and sharing with others.” [SEJ]
“Linkbait is the website content that targets link-friendly audiences. Its goals include high levels of traffic, visibility, branding, numerous links. Linkbait combines the practices of viral marketing with popular tech brands.” [SeoMoz]
“Linkbait is not manipulation. If a blogger links to your content, it should be because their audience benefits directly from that link - they learn something new, have access to a fantastic tool, get a hearty laugh or discover something that provokes discussion.” [Arguing with Link Moses]
“Linkbait is based on the fact how people evaluate your content. The post will be linked to if it is being worthy of attention (based on overall and subject related credibility and authority), being worthy of a subscription (generally being worth visiting again, or adding your feed) or being worthy of a recommendation (via link, instant message, or email).” [SEO Book]
“The linkbait way of link building is a mindset. To do it well, you need to put thoughts of manipulating the system to one side and focus entirely on providing value to your clients users and making that value easy to link to.” [2007 Guide to Linkbaiting]
Linkbaiting follows the scheme a) Linkbait Launch, b) The Long Tail of Links, c) Residual Traffic, d) Search Engine Rankings. “The content is released, shared with prominent bloggers, and submitted to portals like Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit and Netscape. If the content gains traction and visibility at widely-read sites, medium and smaller outlets, [..] content will spread across the Web. Even after the initial buzz from your successful linkbait campaign dies down, your site’s traffic may stay on a slight increase due to a “linkbait bump” that keeps users circling back to your site. The massive influx of links will cause a direct boost of the link popularity of the content piece, as well as an overall boost in global site popularity—and search engines tend to reward links with rankings.”
“In most cases Linkbaiting is facilitated by writing good content, doing something controversial or performing some sort of act that causes others to want to link to you. [Getting Links]
“Once a great site, great application or trendy post is written about somewhere, it gets picked up and dragged across the web. Social tagging and popularity ranking sites (like the aforementioned Digg & del.icio.us) help to give the document massive visibility to hundreds of sheep-like content creators, who’ll happily link to you.” [Linkbaiting for Fun and Profit]
“Linkbait has limitations. It’s no good for: CTR-based ads, conversions, supportive, emotionally sensitive comments and instant subscribers. It’s great for Inbound links (if you have an effective piece), search engine rankings (if you can achieve the aforementioned links), publicity (people will start to know who you are and remember your brand after seeing your site several times through social media), branding (growing awareness and a reputation), getting the attention of Influencers.” [Social Media Traffic]
“Link bait rarely makes much money or directly pays for itself from the direct traffic. However, it has amazing indirect value. Even if people do not link to your link bait idea right away you still gain mindshare and brand recognition amongst a group of people who have significant authority. Many search engines, such as Google, use authority centric relevancy algorithms. Editorial links are seen as votes or signs of trust. In Google, getting a link to any part of your site will help make all pages on your site more authoritative.” [Link Baiting Strategies?]

Profound Rules of Linkbaiting

Create original, unique, creative content. Choose topics that other people wouldn’t like to touch and do it wisely. If you are making a claim or a counter-claim then back it up with substantiated data. “The Cambrian House decided to buy 1000 pizzas to feed the Googlers. They video taped their process and placed it on the web. This video resulted in over 400 links and thousands of visitors in a period of days.” [Linkbaiting Explained, Getting Links]
Create remarkable content. “At the end of the day, it boils down to this one thing. Your content needs to be amazing. If you can hit that sweet spot for your audience then the links will roll in, and in, and in, and in.” [2007 Guide to Linkbaiting]
Create useful content. “When Aaron Wall released his SEO Firefox tool it brought in over 2000 links as well as thousands of visitors in just a few days. Because so many people linked to the tool with the word “SEO” in the anchor text, the SEO for Firefox web page is now ranked on Google for the term SEO.” [Getting Links]
But useful content is not enough. “Link baiting [..] encapsulates a fundamental truth – in any crowded market, popularity counts. There is a nonsense often perpetrated by some SEOs – “producing quality content will attract links”. It doesn’t. Not by itself, anyway. Quality content needs to be placed somewhere where people will see it, and shaped in such a way as to encourage viral take-up. [..] The web is a popularity contest, thus the demand for marketers and marketing strategy.” [v7n]
Make your content universally valuable, memorable and compelling. “The higher quality the content you create and the more targeted you make it, the better your chances for keeping a percentage of the traffic you initially attract and getting a higher number of links from your effort.” [SeoMoz]
Create remarkable content. “At the end of the day, it boils down to this one thing. Your content needs to be amazing. If you can hit that sweet spot for your audience then the links will roll in, and in, and in, and in.” [2007 Guide to Linkbaiting]
Create useful content. “When Aaron Wall released his SEO Firefox tool it brought in over 2000 links as well as thousands of visitors in just a few days. Because so many people linked to the tool with the word “SEO” in the anchor text, the SEO for Firefox web page is now ranked on Google for the term SEO.” [Getting Links]
But useful content is not enough. “Link baiting [..] encapsulates a fundamental truth – in any crowded market, popularity counts. There is a nonsense often perpetrated by some SEOs – “producing quality content will attract links”. It doesn’t. Not by itself, anyway. Quality content needs to be placed somewhere where people will see it, and shaped in such a way as to encourage viral take-up. [..] The web is a popularity contest, thus the demand for marketers and marketing strategy.” [v7n]
Make your content universally valuable, memorable and compelling. “The higher quality the content you create and the more targeted you make it, the better your chances for keeping a percentage of the traffic you initially attract and getting a higher number of links from your effort.” [SeoMoz]
Exploit the law of value. “Your blog must provide value to the reader by addressing a problem, concern, desire, or need that the reader already has. Fresh, original content is critical.” [The 5 Immutable Laws of Persuasive Blogging]
Offer viral ideas. “A key dynamic in the spread of the idea is the capsule that contains it. If it’s well visualized, easy to swallow, tempting and complete, it’s a lot more likely to get a good start. No one gets an idea unless: a) the first impression demands further investigation, b) they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea and c) they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time. [What makes an idea viral?]
Don’t sell products. Offer useful content. “Useful content gets linked. Products don’t. Publishing your posts, consider, why people should link to you.” [Eric Ward]
Don’t spam. “You might have to try linkbaiting several times before you get good at the process; in the meantime, make sure that you don’t burn bridges by spamming bloggers with email requests to cover your piece.”
Understanding what content, features, and subjects are “in” is essential. “It is a subjective, but important piece of the linkbait creation puzzle. Right now, for example, one could search through Del.icio.us and Digg to find examples of sites and pages that are getting lots of press. Blogs like Lifehacker, Threadwatch, Gizmodo, and others can also serve as inspiration when you’re searching for the latest crazes. My current experience shows that there are two big fields getting attention - web 2.0 applications and trend-announcing posts (or articles) that present new data or talk about how existing trends are affecting industries. Both of these get hundreds of links from bloggers who can’t seem to resist pointing to something their cohorts will later reference them for.” [Linkbaiting for Fun and Profit]
Tell stories. “One of the most effective direct-response techniques is storytelling, mixed in with various psychological triggers and all polished with basic copywriting techniques. But the real magic happens well before a word is written — in the formulation of the story itself.” [Trading Words For Traffic].
Understand your audience. “Normally, you’re building content targeted to your site’s visitors—people who want your products, services or content. But for linkbait, you need to also appeal to an entirely different audience—one that can help your site achieve mass appeal in the niche that you select. I advise reviewing the coverage you see for other links in your area; using del.icio.us tags and blog archives can help with this process.”
Keep connected to your readers. Appreciate their feedback. “At least once per year, ask your visitors what do they think about your website’s content. What would they want to read more? What new facilities should you offer them?” [10 reasons to survey your visitors, 101 Web Marketing Ideas]

Writing-related Principles of Successful Linkbaiting

Be appealing. “Creating some room for controversy or discussion can inspire more links.” [7 Steps to Linkbait]
Be laser focused. “Make sure that you are primarily focusing on a particular topic, and the more specialized that topic is, the better you’ll do. It’s also key to step back and evaluate whether there are enough prospective readers in your chosen niche. It’s better to be brutally honest with yourself than to toil away and end up disappointed.” [10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers]
Be the first to do something. To expose a scammer, to research and document something, to review something, wo propose something, to create a resource that is just in time for a major event.” [Link Bait]
Be generous. “If you respect your network, and work hard to be part of the community surounding your topic, the rewards can really pay of – never abuse it, it tends ot backfire in all kinds of horrible ways.” “Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.” [Seth Godin]
Be accurate. “Rather than aiming for bland objectivity, it is easy to be remarkable by being more biased and more personable, especially on your feature articles.” If you’ve made a mistake, apologize for it. [SEO Book]
Be curious and information-possessed. Get as much information as you can. “Use and abuse vertical search, social bookmarking, and meta news sites as the resources that they are. The less accessible a piece of information is the easier it is to sound remarkable by citing it.” [SEO Book]
Be inventive and creative. Offer fresh ideas and creative approaches.
Be an expert. “Write about what you really know. Let people profit from your expertise and wisdom and let others do the job of writing about the things you are not completely comfortable with.” [12 Dirty Suggestions]
Be humble. “Don’t forget your roots, be humble: sometimes it can be easy to get carried away being a BlogStar or industry talking head. Remember those who helped you along the way, and that respect will help all involved.” [13 Rules of SMO]
Be timeless. “Write posts that will be readable in a year. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.” [Seth Godin]
Be transparent. Have open-minded conversations with your readers. Be real, honest and sincere.
Be clever. “Discover big players in your field. Create a list and identify the format, features and successful tactics each of the sources employ.” Use these techniques to both draw their attention to your site and imrpove the quality of your content. [SeoMoz]
Be patient. Do not try to achieve some tremendous results immediately - it simply won’t work.
Be passionate. “There is something about a well written, well argued and passionate rant that is very link worthy. People get stirred up when you get passionate and the links will often flow as a result.” [ProBlogger]
Be determined. Select a content focus. “Brainstorm 2-3 dozen ideas, select some of them that are completely unique and incredibly appealing. Decide based on what you feel what would be most effective with your audience or industry. Invest enough time in writing quality material.” [SeoMoz]
Be future-oriented. “Make use of phrases, concepts and ideas that will become popular in the future.” [Catch Better Rankings]
Be investigative. “Target offline media. Reach media through Online Exposure.” [SeoMoz]
Be critical to yourself. “Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.” [Seth Godin]
Be honest to yourself. Quote your sources. Give credit to the people who inspired and helped you. Mentioning them, you strenghten your reputation.
Select a magnetic headline. Use appealing, provoking, magnetic headline. “When beginning a link bait piece, clear your mind and focus on title ideas. I like to brainstorm three or four different titles, then have a friend help me pick the best one, and then, right before posting, give it a final tweak (if necessary) for maximum effect. You can use the Copyblogger Cheat Sheet as well.” [Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMM]
Open your blog post with a Bang. “Opening must carry the momentum. […] The headline, the opening paragraph and closing are extremely imporant. You can “ask the question, share an anecode or quote, invoke the mind’s eye, cite a shocking statistics, use an analogy, metaphor or simile.” [Copyblogger] Closing your post, you can write a brief summary of the article, speak directly to the reader, provoke with a funny or controversal remark.
Make it easier to link to you. In every post provide a short, precise description and/or summary of the article.
Help your content travel. “When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.” [5 Rules of SMO]
Write efficiently. Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative. Never have only 4 rules.” [Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips]
Find a fresh angle. Consider a subject from your personal professional point of view. Argue with your readers, strengthen your position, deliver your message. Let your readers see an idea in a different light. Take pieces of seemingly unrelated topics and link them to their mantra.” [ProBlogger.
Use striking images. The image of the post can help to visualize the topic you’re writing about and give an article a vivid, fresh look.
Cover topics that need attention. “In every niche, there are certain topics and questions that are frequently asked or pondered, but rarely have definitive answers. While this recommendation applies to nearly every content-based site, it’s particularly easy to leverage with a blog.” [21 Tactics]
Link intelligently. “When you link out in your blog posts, use convention where applicable and creativity when warranted, but be aware of how the links you serve are part of the content you provide. Not every issue you discuss or site you mention needs a link, but there’s a fine line between overlinking and underlinking.” [21 Tactics To Increase Blog Traffic]
Make people think. “Posts that force you to think and that tickle your intellectual buds get linked to a lot.” [Linkbaiting Explained]
Encourage your visitors to link to you. “Encourage readers to submit your posts to Digg and Del.icio.us, or more specific link sites depending on your subject matter. Those categories in del.icio.us for example, are exported by users to their own blogs (targeted, keyworded link text = good), and they often kick off a knock on effect [pdf] that can have wild implications for your Search traffic.”

Tactics and Strategies of Linkbaiting

Define your strategy and tactics wisely. Have a concrete plan for your blogging activities. Write down everything, breakdown your ideas, evaluate content, mix and match your content with your strategy and your concept list. [The Changing Face of Linkbait]
Gain a reputation. “Linkbait is difficult to launch the first few times if no one on the Web has heard of your brand. Once you’ve spent some time in the blogosphere and social media space, you may find that a lot of your content goes viral without any effort on your part. Thus, creating a reputation is an important part of making linkbait successful.” “A strong profile at the social media profiles can make a huge difference.” [7 Steps to Linkbait
First gain respect, then advertise. “Whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising.” [21 Tactics]
Maintain your good name. “Your reputation is at stake every time you link to another site. A link is an endorsement; don’t get yourself in a sticky situation. Your readers will follow the links you bring them because they have confidence in your ability to sniff out the noteworthy material. Be certain that you will not regret the backing of another site.” [Link Bait Success]
Share your knowledge. “Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.” [Seth Godin]
Reveal as much as possible. “If you can offer content that’s usually private - trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occassional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit.” [21 Tactics]
Use a human voice. “Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it’s most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you’ll be in a good position to succeed.” [21 Tactics]
Appeal to the long tail. “Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.” [Seth Godin]
Widen the horizon of your subjects - permanently. “ Try to diversify your posts within the many spheres of knowledge you have.” [12 Suggestions]
Post regularly. “If you have a content website, try to keep your posting frequency regular. Just don’t make your posting habit irregular. Today 1 post, tomorrow 5 posts, 1 week no posts etc. That disturbs visitors and that will hurt your RSS subscribers and newsletter subscribers numbers.” [101 Web Marketing Ideas] Each post must be unique and have a high value.
Consider the best times and locations to launch your idea. Ensure your story has a title that is easy to vote for. Ensures your story is submitted at an appropriate time. If you do not do it soon after mentioning a story on your own site someone else may submit for you, using a dumb title or dumb post content.” [Link Baiting Strategies]
Select best timing for your post. Analyzing the preferences and habits of your visitors, you can time your submission for maximum exposure. “Post on weekdays (especially monday in the morning), because there are more readers. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.” [Seth Godin]
Build a brand. “To be [successful], you need to be a brand that people want to associate themselves with and a brand that people feel they derive value from being a member.” [21 Tactics]
Create your networks. Make friends. “Create your own network and work hard to help everyone in your network. When someone links to a post you have written or comments on your blog, they become part of your network. The idea is to take your network with you, to help them help you. There is no reason why everyone can’t be a winner.” [Linking Linkbait]
Use the power of networking. “The most overlooked strategy for gaining traffic. Don’t badger other bloggers for links, because it rarely works anymore. Find a way to help them with something, and then eventually work that initial graciousness into a business relationship and even friendship. There are real people behind these blogs, and they respond to good will just like people do offline.” [Copyblogger]
Become a guest blogger. “Contributing content to someone else’s blog may seem crazy, but it’s a solid strategy to gain exposure for your own blog and build your subscriber base. Just make it very clear to the blog owner that you require a very brief byline at the end of the post, with a link back to your site. And make sure it’s original content, not something recycled off of your blog.” [10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers]
Make cross-promotional deals. “Find a blogger that publishes related, but non-competitive content. Work out a deal where you both promote each other in your RSS feeds, using Feedvertising. The smaller blog would promote the other blog continuously, while the larger blog would reserve one slot for the smaller blog, and use the other slots for other cross-promotion deals, affiliate links, or sponsor ads.” [Copyblogger]
Request links wisely. “Write a truly personal letter, explain who you are, what your site is about, and why it’s relevant to blogger’s visitors.” [How To Request Links]
Link to bloggers who have linked to you. “[If] someone links to your link bait, you link to them through third parties. Increasing the traffic and page rank of those that link to you will have a knock on effect of improving your own. If you are linked to regularly from the same site it will make sense to send them as much traffic as possible. [Linking Likbait]
Leverage the mediums out there. “The [..] examples caused their creators to gain links at a rapid rate because they leveraged the mediums out there such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Magnolia, BlinkList, and YouTube. You need to leverage these social mediums; it will increase your chances of success.” [Getting Links]
Grab Their Attention. “Writing the headlines and initial descriptions to submit to the social sites, emailing bloggers and appearing in search results is a critical part of linkbait. Many readers will see your headline, and in the early phase it’s critical that they follow your link and help to spread your message.”
Participate in discussions in your niche. “A good link building strategy is to comment or participate in discussions or content on other websites in your industry. It’s not enough to have good articles/content. The world has to know about them. Make connections/relations with other jounalists/bloggers/entreprenours in your niche, comment their articles, and links will come by themselves, with time.” “Read and participate in conversations related to your niche of expertise on other blogs. Be careful about what you write though - double check your facts and always write relevant and informative comments, using the occasion to leave your link through your name in the header of the comments you’re posting.” [101 Web Marketing Ideas] [12 Suggestions]
Ask people to quote you. “If there’s a particularly strong site in your sector that you desperately want a link from, this tactic can be of occassional use. The idea is to write a news article with some legitimacy and request a quote from the company/individual you want a link from. Once they know you’re writing about them, make sure to send them a copy of the press release or story once it hits and let them know they’re welcome to copy portions of the article for their own site if they’d like to reference it (with a link of course).” [5 Rare and Valuable Techniques]
Respond to comments. “Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.” [25 Tips For Marketing Your Blog]
Mentioned without a link? Ask for a link! “Identify sites that already mention your site, but have failed to provide the direct HTML link. Write a pleasant, personal email to them and request the link - success rates can be very high. To find these willing linkers, you can use Yahoo!’s advanced search parameters, i.e. “seomoz” -linkdomain:seomoz.org. [5 Rare and Valuable Techniques]

Linkbaiting Hooks

Use hooks for unique and useful content. “Content is only crowned as king when it has focus. A hook can help you keep this content focused and tight, and to fulfill the promise you made in the title. The hook has the potential to be the burning sensation that makes the article “write itself”.
News Hook. “Fast, up to date news on breaking topics with expert commentary on the topic. Selecting topics, use niches to write about.” [Linkbaiting Hooks]. The news hook is when you are the first to scoop a story; everyone who carries the story will then (theoretically) link to you as the original source.
Contrary Hook. The contrary hook is when you refute a common myth in your niche. “Read throughout your blogosphere, and make sure to have an opinion on everything. Take someone’s post, and become the counterpoint.”[Linkbaiting Hooks]
Resource Hook. The resource hook occurs when you make an extremely helpful piece of content that everyone will naturally want to bookmark. “Write an extensive guide to anything, and spend some time on the research, and delivery format of your research. There’s opportunity for this everywhere.” You’ll increase general awareness of your blog, gain authority by association and you are likely to receive links and traffic if your resource is fairly comprehensive.” [Linkbaiting Hooks] E.g. create an (extensive) glossary of terms in your industry. That will set you apart and will make you an authority website in your niche. [101 Web Marketing Ideas, The Resource Linkbait]
Humor Hook. People love to laugh, especially at people in their industry or niche.
Giveaway Hook. Offer your users something they can take with them - e.g. free wallpapers, icon sets, themes, pdfs, templates, layouts.
Research/Statistic Hook. Sometimes just compiled numbers, or any kind of scientific survey, will get a lot of link love, especially in an under-studied area.
Invest your time in a research. “Danny Sullivan actually sat down and checked the spam filtering accuracy of SpamCop, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail. Personally, counting false positives in your Spam folder would annoy me to death, but putting in that work generates insights on the differences between the competing services. Admittedly, the results will vary by individual, but often some data is better than no data at all.” [Matt Cutts: Linkbait]
The incentive hook. “If you give people a motive to talk about you they likely will. Contests have worked for ages.” [Linkbaiting Hooks]
The interviews hook. Interview people who are well-known in your field of interests. [The Lazy Men’s Guide]
The “How To” hook. “People don’t want to know “what” you can do, they want to know “how” it’s done. If you think you’re giving away too much information, you’re on the right track.” [The 5 Immutable Laws of Persuasive Blogging]
The Story Hook. “Stories are the most persuasive blogging element of all, as they allow you to present a problem, the solution, and the results, all while the connotation of the story allows readers to sell themselves on what you have to offer.” [The 5 Immutable Laws of Persuasive Blogging]
The Lists Hook. People don’t read on the Web, they scan. Offer readable and scannable content which can be easily digested. [Linkbaiting Hooks]

Copywriting: Improve Your Writing Skills

Fifty (50!) Tools which can help you in Writing 50 tools that can help you when you do any kinds of writing. Use this quick list of Writing Tools as a handy reference. Copy it and keep it in your wallet or journal, or near your desk or keyboard.
Copywriting 101 (Copyblogger.com), and Good Copywriting - blogs about copywriting on the Web.
When You Can’t Get Started and How to Conquer Writer’s Block — The Ultimate Guide Writer’s block. The good news is every author in the world deals with it, and the web is full of useful tips for beating it. I’ve collected the best of them for you here, to help you whenever you’re battling the blank screen.
Poynter Online - Writing Tools Column Poynter Online publishes read-worthy articles about writing and editing on a regular basis and provides tools for your writing toolbox.
George Orwell’s 5 Rules of Effective Writing

Copywriting Books

As selected in the article New To Copywriting - Start Here.

“Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins
“The Robert Collier Letter Book” by Robert Collier
“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Dr. Robert Cialdini
“Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene Schwartz
“Tested Advertising Methods” by John Caples

Sources, Resources

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35 designers. 5 questions. 5 precise answers. Result: 175 professional suggestions, tips and ideas from some of the best web-developers all around the world. In March we've selected over 35 prominent designers and design companies, contacted them and asked to answer five design-related questions, sharing their knowledge and experience with fellows developers. Here on Smashing Magazine. ...

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Online Converters

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Online converters always come in handy. Once you need to perform some operation with your files, they can save your time achieving the same results online, without installing some specific software. In fact, there are many online tools, which convert formats, files and code snippets for free. Some of them are quite specific tools aimed for developers, but some are common "all-rounders", which...

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