Link Bait Hall of Fame

Halloween Link Bait Link Dump

Happy Halloween link baiters! In the spirit of this ghoulishly delightful holiday, I decided I’d treat you to some successful Halloween-themed link bait. Only problem is, there are way too many to choose just 3. So rather than leave any good fright night link builders out, I thought I’d give ‘em all to you in one [...]

Continue reading...

Ergonomic Laptop Stand Made From a Coat Hanger

Here is an example of How-To link bait done to the hilt. Notice the subject matter – making something useful out of something cheap and readily available. Those are some of the best How-To’s. Notice too the excellent use of images and pop-ups to enhance the lesson. The trick to successful How-To link bait is finding [...]

Continue reading...

Brain Trust: 100 Ivy League Business & Entrepreneurship Courses You Can Take for Free

It seems free resources is the subject of the day. This one’s of Ivy League business and entrepreneurship classes that have made their course materials available to the general public for free online. Courses in: Accounting and Finance Economics Communication Management Leadership Marketing and Advertising Product Development and Launch Technology Law Field Specific courses A good lesson to derive from this piece is that effective link [...]

Continue reading...

30 Free Stock Photo Sites: Ultimate Collection

Here we have a resource that’s little more than a glorified link dump post (with banner images and brief write-ups the only factors distinguishing it). Yet it’s become a popular page linked by many webmasters (and would-be’s). That’s because it’s clean, concise, thorough, easy on the eyes, and above-all: useful. Most web pages with “Free” in [...]

Continue reading...

Garamond Powerline

I didn’t even realize this was a font until I Googled it. I thought it was a series of photos from some artist’s installation. Imagine my surprise! I suspect most of the hundreds of inlinks this page is getting are not from typesetters either. It just goes to show that if you can frame something as [...]

Continue reading...

20 Websites You Never Realised You Needed

Answer: Value, value, value! Question: What makes an ordinary Resource article into link bait? No, it’s not Lists. This just happens to be one, but it can be a How-To or other type of resource just the same. What’s important is that it’s about something that has obvious value to its target reader. In this case we have [...]

Continue reading...

Recession Watch: McDonald’s Cracks Down on Sauce Scofflaws

You know the economy is bad when… …when McDonald’s gets stingy with their sauces. What makes this work as link bait is not just that it portrays a shocking reality (shock value) or that it’s about McDonald’s (pop culture) but that it’s a sign of the times. Signs of the times are great. Why? Because they reach us. [...]

Continue reading...

Automaker Lays Off Detroit Office With Blog Post

Who would do such a thing? Tesla, as it happens, but is that why over 12,000 websites have already linked to this posting (which also boasts more than 1,000 Diggs)? To find out who would be so callous as to lay off employees with something as impersonal and demeaning as a blog post? Or is [...]

Continue reading...

Ann Telnaes’ Powell Cartoon on WashingtonPost.com

This is beautiful: an animated political cartoon that keeps it simple, both contentually and aesthetically. It shows a cartoon Colin Powell speaking a portion of his actual endorsement for Barack Obama, followed by the punchline, an equally spartan response from Senator McCain. Both portions of dialogue are actual snippets sampled from the actual speakers themselves. In [...]

Continue reading...

Awesome F-35B Video Shows US Marines Already Have Transformers

This short video blows the mind, revealing that technology like that of the favorite boy’s action figures turned blockbuster Hollywood SciFi/Action flick “The Transformers” already exists today. And who else to be working on it but the U.S. Military. Oooh. The video is well worth the watch, and while I won’t give anything away, I’ll [...]

Continue reading...