Originally published on June 7, 2006. Early on, we learned the blog tricks of the trade. I guess they worked. How else would anyone know we were out here?
The Blogosphere is big. Searching for relevant blog content are engines like Technorati, Sphere, Gnoos, Icerocket & Google Blog Search. If you want your blog to be read & ranked higher you have to appeal to the search spiders and crawlers. So what’s the best bait for these webbie wascals? It’s links.
Every blog search engine algorithym measures, to a large degree, the number of incoming links to a blog. So how do you get links to your blog? Here is a list of ways to bait your blog hook. While some are tongue and cheek, most will work. (So we hear in the hallways.) Caveat: Once you get the links and the traffic you have to keep it going with good content. Once you stop feeding, the fish go away.
1. Write a how-to article or, better yet, paper. Case in point: Brian Clark, of Copyblogger, has a link in his sidebar to his 30 page marketing gem, Viral Copy. Everyone loves a how-to. It makes us feel like we’ve learned something instead of just surfing the net. How about “how to write a how to”?
2. Make a list of anything. Best, worst, biggest, whatever. Put it in your title. People love lists on everything. The 20 tallest buildings, the 5 ways to beat a speeding ticket–let Guinness be your guide. Guy Kawasaki of signum sine tinnitu rountinely posts lists of 10. It helps that he writes bestselling marketing books. Still, chances are you can put together a 5 point list (as we have done). We favor the odd number lists. (Have to research why that is.)
3. Be direct & controversial. The Property Grunt fills this niche quite nicely. He is a white-knuckle blogger. It helps that he speaks about an industry he is involved in. The trenches make you tough. It also helps to be anonymous.
4. Use Buzzwords. Every industry has them. Want to get a link for your real estate blog? Mention the word “bubble”. Better yet, call your blog Housing Bubble.
5. Take an unpopular view on a hotly debated subject. It will invite comment. Stand up for a broker’s right to a 6% commission. While Dustin at Rain City Guide does not routinely take the unpopular view, his contributors know which topics are likely to spark debate and he has built a loyal following.
6. Link to an A-lister & hope they link back. While this supposedly works, we have not found it to be true, unless you are also an A-lister. You can also try commenting on their blogs. If they think your comments are worthy they might throw you a link bone. Arrff.
7. Take great photographs. We use our friend Justin of JustiNYC to illustrate this point. The guy has an eye. Curbed and brownstoner are admirers and that’s a good thing linkage-wise.
8. Just be a damn expert. Jonathan Miller. Nuff said.
9. Have a bunch of charts with a lot of arrows. This works great for business & economic topics. That’s what our professors did and they knew what they were talking about. Didn’t they? Ibidem.
10. Create a new word or phrase and work it until it catches on. A tough one, but accomplished by patrick.net, who coined the phrase “Realtwhore.”
11. Be funny and creative. Being on the cutting edge of blogging helps. It also helps to show your face if you’re good looking. That’s what makes the vlog Rocketboom rock & boom.
12. Post anything tech oriented or gadgety. If a blogger is male he probably loves tools. Give him what he wants. Even a picture of a vintage computer will do it. This is a niche how-to with a devoted following. The bookmarking site Digg is almost exclusively tech focused. The blogosphere, after all, exists in the techies’ universe.
13. Do something no one else has done. Another toughie, it worked for oneredpaperclip. Not only has Kyle drawn attention to his blog, he has garned air time. That’s above ground status. Good for most but he just wants a house.
14. Encourage your readership to tag & subscribe by email or RSS feed & use the community bookmarking sites. If they regularly read your posts they will link to ones they like. See sellsius post here.
15. Be a name dropper. See above 
Technorati Tags: blogging, blog tips, link bait, selltoon
Great ‘how-to’ list AND it’s an odd number of items, too!
I just launched my blog last week and this post has given me a lot of good ideas.
Thanks.
Jesse
Interesting,that not much has changed since your original post. The challenge for a super local RE blog is to have content interesting to many readers. We only have 18,000 people in our town:) This is in contrast to writing about blogging or SEO, or elections -topics that have much wider audience. The post is a great list of recommendations and examples.