Link Bait is anything you do on your site to fish for free links.  Most people’s pockets are only so deep so they need to find ways to get free or low cost links.  To come up with effective link bait, you need to tailor the bait to your website’s category.  Link bait can be a website giveaway, a news scoop, a free tool on your site, or an outrageous statement that attracts attention.

Here are some samples of link bait you could use:

• A blog post with a preposterous headline.
• A fake story about something people in your industry would freak out over if true.
• An important news scoop related to your website’s industry.
• Free website templates with your site’s link on the bottom of the template.
• Free WordPress blog templates with your site’s link on the bottom of the template
• Free link exchange software with your site’s link on the bottom.
• Free website widgets people that visit your site might want to install on their website.
• An innovative web based tool on your site that your visitors would love to use and tell others about.
• Best website awards (that link back to your site)
• A super cool flash game.
• An outrageous video
• Free content with your website address at the bottom of each page.

I am sure there are hundreds of other types of link bait out there.  You just need to get creative and come up with something that makes people that visit your site link to you for free.  Actually the links might be free but the time and money used to create the link bait definitely has its own cost.  Are there really any free links anymore?