The holy grail of SEO, a self-feeding SEO machine, and all that jazz…

When the quirky meerkat Aleksandr Orlov appeared on our screens in 2009 to inform us of the difference between Comparethemarket.com and Comparethemeerkat.com, some brilliant linkbait was born.

The spin-off site Comparethemeerkat.com (where you can compare thousands of meerkats), has attracted nearly 10,000 inbound links, from people compelled to spread the meerkat word. By linking the spin-off site to the main price comparison site, Comparethemarket.com will have been able to pass on valuable link-juice and gained some well-earned Google-love. Simples!

So what is linkbait?

According to the head of Google’s Webspan team and SEO-guru Matt Cutts, linkbait is anything “interesting enough to catch people’s attention”. More specifically, linkbait differs from viral content in that it’s not just designed to be spread around, but to be linked to aswell. And while the primary purpose of linkbait is to attract inbound links, it can also help to generate press, create a buzz and drive traffic.

The beauty of linkbait is that once you have created your interesting content and told a few key people about it through any type of media channel, it can quickly snowball around the net and translate into numerous inbound links from blogs, Twitter, social networks, etc … These key people are often referred to as the LINKERATI (a term coined by Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz fame) and carry a lot of weight in the world wide web.

Whether they are bloggers, tweeters, social media participants or something else – they are internet-savvy individuals with many digital followers. They are not easily pleased and can be reluctant to use their powers to pass on marketing messages, but if you can create something that is simply too good for them to ignore, your internet snowball can begin to roll.

Linkbait can come in many forms and will often use an element of humour, expertise or controversy to gain interest. Articles, blog posts and videos are content placed on your own site or a sister site linked to a main site, while badges, widgets or tools appear on other sites with a link back to your site. ‘How to’ and ‘best of’ guides, top ten lists, surveys, quizzes, charts, graphs and calculators are all attention-grabbing forms of content used as linkbait and poured into any of the formats above.

Here are some great examples:

Blendtec’s Willitblend.com

From baseball balls to iPods, commercial blender company Blendtec has created a series of super-popular, well-branded viral videos in which they test whether everyday objects will blend in their ‘Total Blender’ model. The iPhone video alone, which shows an iPhone being blended into a neat pile of iDust, has had 7,785,943 views on YouTube. Willitblend.com (which re-directs to www.blendtec.com/willitblend) has attracted more than 25,000 inbound links. (Plus the one I just gave them …)

Not only that, but you can become a Blendtec fan on facebook,  there is a Will it Blend iPhone app, people can suggest their own objects for a Will it Blend video and they are giving away Will it Blend DVDs, T-shirts and blenders through a twitter competition – making this much more than just a linkbait campaign.

SEOmoz’s Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization

A great example of linkbait in the form of a comprehensive article that also helped to improve the company’s reputation. It attracted over 8,000 inbound links and helped establish the SEOmoz website as a useful resource for SEO information.

The AquAid charity badge, a Propellernet original

Badges are images that are imbedded into external sites through HTML code with a link back to their creator. Propellernet created badges for UK suppliers of water coolers AquAid, containing the information that the company donates to Christian Aid and Pump Aid. By displaying the badge on their site, AquAid’s clients are telling the world they are involved in a good cause by getting their water-coolers from AquAid – and linking back to them too. Job done!

And of course, this blog post alone with links to all this lovely linkbait is a perfect example of how well it all works… If you have decided you like linkbait and want to be inspired on a regular basis, sign up to our Rocket Newsletter which features linkbait examples in the Social Mayhem section each month!