311 – Get more traffic and make Google happy: Tom talks Link Bait

Episode 311 – Link Bait
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody it's Tom here with episode three hundred and eleven of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about link bait and how it can help your site. I'm not talking about click bait, which is a bad thing.

[00:00:41] Click bait is where someone says, I don't know, something like we're so sorry to hear about Clint Eastwood. Implying that he's dead. So you go to click and then you go to a page about a wrinkle cream or something like that, or Google announced it's cracking down on that. So link bait is a totally different and legit thing. I'm not talking about click bait. All right. We'll get into that in a couple of minutes.

[00:01:10] Hope you didn't miss Episode 310. That was the exact method to put frequently asked questions on your site to please Google.

[00:01:21] Now you can put them on your site, but if you don't do them in a certain way, the chances of you getting the real big benefit of it are very slim.

[00:01:31] So check out episode 310 if you missed it. Now, how would you like to hear your own voice here on screw the Commute? Well, if the show has helped you out at all in your business or giving your ideas to help you start a business. We want to hear about it. Go to screwthecommute.com and look for a little blue sidebar that says send a voicemail. Click on it. Talk into your phone or computer. Tell me all about how the shows helped you and also put your Web site there so you can get a big shout out in front of thousands of people on a future episode of Screw the Commute. Now make sure you grab a copy of our automation e-book.

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[00:02:56] All right. Everybody's worried, still worried about the pandemic.

[00:03:00] But I'm telling you, if you get the skills to work from home, you can have a great lifestyle business like I've enjoyed for twenty six years. And I've always been in my own business for 40. What is it, 40 for you here now? But this is the best ever this last 26 years. I do what I want. I deal with who I want. I sit at home. I don't have to travel. I don't have to commute. That's why this podcast exists. You're the commuter. So you can do that, too, if you have good, credible training. Well, I formalized my training at my school. IMTCVA.org is the only license dedicated Internet marketing school in the country. We update our curriculum sometimes daily. Probably never less than weekly that we put something new in that's happening on the Web. And it's very up today and it's an in demand skill to get the license for the school. I had to prove to the state of Virginia that there was a demand for this. Well, every business on the face of the Earth needs a Internet presence and email marketing and shopping carts and blogging and text there, all this stuff that they do. Well, this is hardcore in demand skills, things that I do and the things that every business on Earth needs. So you can be making money in a few months and graduate in six months to a year. So anyway, that's IMTCVA.org. It makes it's great for you. It's a great legacy gift to give to your kids, your grandchildren, nephews, nieces or whatever, that's worth something to them and it's going to keep them from coming home and living with you.

[00:04:45] Ok, let's get into the main event. Link Bait is content on your Web site where people naturally want to link to it from their Web site, blogs, YouTube descriptions, Facebook and all kinds of places. Well, why is this valuable that you see inbound links, in other words, links where someone else links to you? There are major ranking factor with Google.

[00:05:17] If you have lots of high quality and relevant links from sites that are relevant to you or extremely powerful sites like news sites and Wall Street Journal and things like that, or Forbes, they're linking to you. Google thinks, hey, this must be a pretty good site. If so many people bothered to link to it. Now, in the old days, people would buy these fake links. But that's long gone. Don't do that. That will actually hurt your site now. So don't do that. Google figured that out years ago that people were faking this. Don't do it. But you should make an effort to create this kind of content in addition to whatever other content you create to give yourself better chances that large numbers of Web sites will link to you.

[00:06:09] And another thing really about this, numbers of people, you don't necessarily have to have large numbers either. I have an article called Top 20 Seminar Scams. It's been seen a couple hundred thousand times, but I think it only has about one hundred and twenty Web sites linking to it. But many of those sites are massively powerful, like Reddit. I think Huffington Post is linked to a Crimewatch. And bunch of other really important sites. So that article is an example of a list type link bait. I listed 20 ways you could get robbed at a seminar. So you need to think up for your topic and industry. What lists you could make up. So that's one way you can make a link pay.

[00:07:03] Infographics can be very good for link bait. That's where it's a visual representation of what you're talking about. Many times the same list you created in an article or blog post format could be reformatted into an info graphic. I think the free graphics program fact, I'm sure of it. Cannava has info, graphic templates.

[00:07:29] And all you have to do, though, even if you don't have Canva, is Google info, graphic generators, and you'll find tons of them that have templates. You can fill in the blanks with your information and have a very unique, cool looking graphic that people would want to link to.

[00:07:47] All right, another one. How would you like to put twenty six pages of fantastic content on your site overnight?

[00:07:56] Well, create a glossary of industry terms and people will link to it. We made one on my site, ProtectionDogsElite.com because I couldn't understand lots of the terms the trainers were using. So I figured other people that want a family protection dog couldn't either. And with no promotion whatsoever, we got some very serious sites linking to see a glossary can also keep people on your site for long periods of time, which is called in Google terms, time on site or in analytics terms, time on site, which is another ranking factor that makes Google think, wow, you are a good site if people stayed on it for a long time.

[00:08:45] So that's a glossary.

[00:08:48] Another link bait is definitive or ultimate or complete lists or guides. They're good link bait. And the name of the guide or list does make a difference. The definitive guide to choosing a Web host, let's say, or the ultimate guide to buying bitcoins. That's just examples that I made up there. But you see the definitive guide, the ultimate guide. I imagine they're probably out there somewhere. But I just made him up. Another good word is complete. As in the complete list of great gardening tools. OK, you got to substitute whatever makes sense for you. But if you sold garden stuff, that would make great sense for you. Make a list of all these great gardening tools and where are they going to buy them from you. All right. Another kind of link bait is controversial content. It can be fantastic link bait and it can create lots of engagement. Well, but that engagement is going to be in the form of arguments. Right. And I had a great media trainer, Joel Roberts. Tell me the media likes heat, not light. So if you can get arguments going and you know, it gets great publicity for you, but you have to have the stomach for it now, you're going to get a confrontation to use this link. Bad idea. I mean, you could put out a blog post titled Folks, I am not going to put out a blog post like this. Want to just use this for an illustration?

[00:10:25] Oh, good. Here's the title of the blog, a blog post that I am not putting out. Why Women Should Be Barefoot and pregnant. Oh, my gosh. Would I do that? Not in a million years. I kind of think barefoot is kind of hot, but I'm not so keen on the pregnant.

[00:10:47] Anyway, you would get pummeled with people attacking you and arguing with you and you'd get trolls sticking up for you to try to just get in there and make a bunch more arguments going on. Now, this doesn't interest me at all. All right. I'm just telling you that people will link to that kind of stuff, even if it's to tell their readers that you were a jerk.

[00:11:12] And people have made a lot of money doing this kind of stuff. It's just not my thing.

[00:11:17] All right, another link bait is data and statistics.

[00:11:21] Now, it's also cool to do your own studies and polls, which become not only link bait, but publicity generators, you see all the time non-scientific surveys like like this.

[00:11:39] One hundred and fifty surfers were asked what they think of the new soft surfboards, and they said. And then you put down what they said. So if you're selling surfboards, it's perfect. And you can get in surfing magazines and surfing Web sites with that totally non-scientific poll.

[00:11:58] So that's Good link bait.

[00:12:00] Current and in the news, content can work, but evergreen content is better, evergreen content is stuff that lasts for long periods of time.

[00:12:13] And the reason is, is the links can really add up to large numbers over time, which not only makes you look better to Google, but people that never heard of you will actually click on those links and possibly turn into customers. And there'll be much greater numbers when it's evergreen content. See, current content can give you a burst of links quickly, but it can fizzle just as quickly. All right, cool pictures and videos are good link bait. We have one that has been stolen quite a bit because we actually took this picture. So if you. And there's others out there now. But we took one of the first ones and people started stealing it. But it's where a young woman is at an ATM machine late at night and her protection dog is watching her back.

[00:13:06] It made it on the very popular Real Penguins site, which linked back to my site ProtectionDogsElite.com and gave me credit for it. Now, since I rely mostly on paid traffic in my email list now, I don't do much of this back link stuff anymore. Most of the links came from that. I have came from people just finding and sharing my content. But if you choose to do this method, which I'm saying is really good for your site.

[00:13:38] You do have to promote the content to get the ball rolling. Put it on your social media. Email it to your list. Put out press releases for publicity, and you will start seeing more and more people linked to you. So how do you know who and how many people are linking to you?

[00:13:59] I'll tell you that in a minute. Right now, I'd like to remind you that you have a person here that's willing to partner with you in the form of my my mentor program where you pay an entry fee and then I help you.

[00:14:15] My whole staff helps you one on one. You have all kinds of unique features with video and shooting in our studio and doing all these things that you need to learn.

[00:14:27] And it's one on one. So you're not lumped in with groups of people that, you know, you lost half the time or board half the time.

[00:14:35] So it's the most unique and longest running mentor program ever. And when I say, partner, my success is tied to your success. So for me to get my big money, you have to make way bigger money so people really love. This has been going 20 years. Seventeen hundred students and still going strong. So check that out. GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com.

[00:14:59] And it also includes a scholarship to my school, which you can gift to a loved one. You can use it yourself if you want more structured. You know, ABC type training. Very powerful. I live and breathe this stuff. I'm available weekends, evenings, holidays. It doesn't make a difference to me. I'm only interested in your success. So the way it's structured is, is that, you know, guys like me were charging 50 or 100 grand upfront to teach this stuff to you.

[00:15:29] Well, I thought that's not really fair. So I switched it and made them all mad by let me in for 10 percent of that roughly.

[00:15:40] And for me to get my fifty thousand, you got to make two hundred thousand. So people just love this. Is that seventeen hundred students later it's still going. And a lot of those people have disappeared off the face of the earth that we're trying to really rate people in the beginning. I know a lot of these people who give them 50 grand, you'd never see him again.

[00:16:01] All right. Let's get back to the main event of Link Bait. So there are inbound link checkers. Many are free and you can get a lot of results for free.

[00:16:14] And then if you want the full monty of results, then you pay a little bit of money. So the one that I like to use is a lot of results in the free version.

[00:16:25] And it's called Ahrefs Backlink checker. But it's a queered spelling, so I put a link to it in the show notes for you.

[00:16:37] And you can also Google link bait and get lots of other examples that people have done that did well for them by getting back Link. So, yeah, just all you have do is Google link bait. And there you go. You'll be buried with stuff and ideas that you can adapt to your stuff. So. So check out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. Check out my school. And I would love to be part of your success.

[00:17:07] And it just thrills me and I live it and breathe it all day long. All right. We'll catch you the next episode. See ya later.

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