This is a follow-up to my previous post giving some tips on link building with how-to articles. But in this post I am going to touch upon a different angle.
Link baiting with lists is a disputable topic. On the one hand, lists were written to death in each and every niche. At some stage I myself have grown sick and tired of seeing “XX ways/ tools / resources” headlines daily. But you know what? It still works.
No matter how much this tactic is used, it is till highly effective. Lists are linked to, commented, bookmarked and passed around. I’ve been writing lists for quite a while now to come to an important conclusion: when done right, lists do work.
But how to do that right? If you are a niche expert (meaning you know at least something, been there for some time at least and have some friends with the same interest), this is not too hard: you are most likely to know how to compile a list that will appeal to the relevant public.
What if you are quite new to a topic and need to brainstorm some killer list-styled article? That’s quite hard (if not impossible) to create some really good content being a newbie and expect industry pros to like and promote it for you.
Where to find inspiration and how to understand what appeals to people in some niche? Here are some quick and easy ways to help you with your link bait when you are stuck:
Browse through topical lists compiled by others. This might seem to be too much but there are sites that aggregate lists of lists. These sites are useful for searching for new ideas and researching the topic.
- Dig a List is a social bookmarking and voting site for lists. It helps to share and cobuild lists with friends ( or thousands people).
- 10 to 1 is another user-generated link collector that allows users to create, share and vote for lists;
- Topblank.com collects top lists from most popular blogs and social networking sites (Digg, Mixx, Reddit). It is useful to check this site daily for more ideas.
- List after List is a user-generated resource allowing members to add their lists in a variety of categories.
- Listropolis aggregates lists from throughout the Internet and represents them in a sleek blog-like interface (RSS option is available by the way);
Use social bookmarking sites to search for more inspiration. Jane once suggested using StumbleUpon tag-search. I’d also add searching Digg and Delicious or any of these keyword brainstorming and social media tools.
