Firstly, it is important to define ‘linkbait.’  At MyCurrencyTransfer.com, we strongly encourage our team to see link bait as content "that acts as a hook to grab the prospective site or individual’s attention."

The purpose of this article is to introduce readers to some of the common link bait strategies that any businesses could feasibly consider using.

-    Egobait (Awards and Badges)

Egobait is a technique where quite simply, you project a message other people want to hear. How do we do it at MyCurrencyTransfer.com?

We are passionate about feedback and reviews. We always ask our customers about our panel of currency brokers customer service, whether the exchange rate offered met their expectations and whether they would use their chosen foreign exchange specialist again. Armed with this data, we can start number crunching and based on our findings, award our brokers with badges for excellent performance. For example, one such company won the ‘Australian Dollar foreign exchange broker of the year.’ They tweeted the message, put the badge on their site and blogged about it. Another broker actually put this award we issued on all their staff’s e-mail signature. When you reward quality service and the perceived sentiment is appreciated, your clients, partners or suppliers will broadcast the award to their fan base.

Egobait is a fantastic way to score mentions, exposure and quality buzz.

-    Top 10 lists
People are generally drawn to the ‘top’ things in many different categories. It is a clean, quick and easy way of distilling information you are looking for. This type of content has a good chance of being socially bookmarked, retweeted, forwarded by e-mail and linked to by those features in the top 10 lists. Make no mistake, producing top 10 lists requires careful research and time. The better and more comprehensive the list, the more likelihood of creating buzz. You can compile shareable list’s for your company blog no matter what industry you work in or how boring  it might be. Don’t just think you have to always talk about exactly what your business does. As a tip, make sure you have a ‘post–content’ outreach program and contact all those that are featured in the top 10 list.  As Gary Vaynerchuk puts it, ‘‘content is king but marketing is the queen, and marketing rules the house.’’ As a general rule of thumb, we spend twice the time on outreach than time spent on writing the content.

-    Widget or tool hook
Think about creating a widget or tool that allows users to input values to get personalised search results. Some of the most useful and popular widgets that you use daily but never really thought of as being linkbait include: mortgage calculators, body fat estimators, credit card processing costs and office space calculators.
At MyCurrencyTransfer.com, we are in the final stages of building a ‘beat the bank calculator’ that helps you compare how much you save by transacting through a foreign exchange broker (cheap) versus the bank (expensive). Widgets are a high risk linkbait strategy as there may well be development costs involved for non-tech savvy entrepreneurs. However, they can provide fantastic rewards and are inherently shareable.

-    The unpopular hook
Say something unpopular, take risks and don’t always stick to the common held view. If you have a very strong belief on a subject matter that might not confirm, your message has the potential to spread like wildfire. Make sure you have strong reasons for your viewpoint and can qualify your opinions. When hosted on your company blog, expect lots of quality feedback. This may be from an army of fans supporting your view or those giving critical feedback. Either way, establish one on one relationships with your new followers and reply to every single comment. It shows you care.

-    Infographics
Infographics are a fantastic way to display numerical information and statistics on a subject matter. People like to look at visual representations rather than reading lengthy pieces of content. They can be extremely shareable and a door opener to journalists in your space. But beware, the sheer volume of infographics created daily has led to saturation and ‘infographic fatigue.’ If you are going down the infographic route, don’t skimp on the design costs as you want it to stand out.

Daniel Abrahams and Stevan Litobac – Co-Founders at MyCurrencyTransfer.com
MyCurrencyTransfer.com is a foreign exchange comparison site that matches individuals and businesses with the best international money transfer deal.