This is part of our Grain of SEO Gold Series for Jewelers--short SEO tidbits.
Today's SEO buzz phrase is "Link Bait" and it refers to something you've put on your website that people find interesting and that they will want to link onto.
Originally that linking process would happen only when someone talked about you on their own website, or maybe in their blog, and then manually created a link from their site to yours. But now with all those social media sharing buttons it's much easier to create linkable online content. People don't have to manually create a link to you on their blog, instead they can click a Facebook Like button and add a comment, or a Google+1 button and add a comment.
Link bait can be anything, just as long as people find it interesting. It could be a long blog post about how one of your customers created an amazing proposal. Readers will gladly share and comment on emotional stories. You could also share the first paragraph to Facebook and Google+ to get the initial interest.
A much easier link bait method is to post a custom design sketch and the final product. Create a page on your website, add a Facebook Like button and a Google +1 button and share these to your own friends. Ask their opinion or somehow introduce and lead them to your website so they would then like/share/comment on their own.
Setting up a Facebook Like button and a Google +1 button are easy for most non-programmers to create. Adding it to your website might be a little tricky and require the talents of your website programmer.
Because we've been spoiled by the ease of social networking, it's more difficult to just add content to your website in hopes that some day someone will find it and link to it. You will get far more inbound links if you give readers an easy way to create them.
