Link baiting is a technique widely embraced by popular bloggers where instead of hunting for links, you write an article in such a way that people will link to you. It’s just like fishing—the post is the bait, the links are the catch. However, a lot of webmasters pay fortunes to skilled copywriters for a great article that doesn’t produce the expected results. Here are some top mistakes you should do your best to avoid.

Link baits on new blogs

If your blog is brand new, it would be hard for people to find your article, no matter how good it is. Link baiting should be tried on established sites where you have a consistent reader base. If neither your RSS readers nor your daily unique visitors are close to the 1,000 mark you should first work on promoting your site and only then try a link bait. Only a fraction of your readers are bloggers and/or have a Twitter or other social media account. You will want to address people who can spread the word on a Web 2.0 platform, not share the link to your article with their friends on MSN. Also, you will want a high visitor retention rate, which can’t happen if you have a new blog. Your readers will click away after they read your article and soon forget about your site altogether if there is nothing else for them to read.

Assuming your link bait post will be a success

No two link bait campaigns are the same. You can have great link bait with quality content, scandals, a funny video that goes viral, shocking  or breaking news, but the success of each post is will vary on a case by case basis. There are way too many variables to be factored in from the very beginning, so the success can never be guaranteed. The best copywriters on the market cannot and will never vouch for the outcome of the campaign. Link bait is always a gamble; sometimes it will pay off, sometimes it will not.

Writing about what’s already trending in Google or Twitter

Trending news is old news. You will want to be the first to write about a topic if you want a huge number of people to link to and promote your post. Otherwise, the best that you can hope for is a few visits and maybe a link or two.

Not publishing the article at the right time

Don’t hit the Publish button at 2:30 in the middle of the night if your main audience is, let’s say, American business readers. Study your Google Analytics charts, learn the time of the day when you have the peak audience and only post your news when most people are reading your site or logged on to their RSS readers. Link baiting is all about being the first to deliver the news.

All in all, link baiting is tricky but it can yield huge results. A specially crafted article can get you hundreds of inbound links at no extra cost beyond creation of the content. Do it right and you can reap the benefits!