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Body Copy

Body Copy

There's been much written, both online and off about copywriting, and as a writer of small talent, it's not for me to get into the in-depth details of it. I am good at linkbaiting though, and am constantly studying what kind of post are being linked on del.icio.us, Digg and other "link sites".

It's the much discussed art of linkbaiting that this post will focus on. Remember, we're talking about getting search engine traffic right? Here's a checklist for writing good linkbait (we'll discuss why links are important a little further down).

• Study the popular bookmarks on del.icio.us to get a feel for what people are linking to


• Such things as HowTo's and Lists are always good fodder for linkbait and you should be aiming to get onto those pages by writing appropriate copy. (you want to be there, because being there will gain you links, and links = traffic, more on that soon...).


• Use html lists, headlines and other visual means of breaking up posts in order to make them easier to read and skim


• Link out, link often and link generously -- Really, forget any rubbish you may have heard about depleting page rank, or any concerns you have over sending away traffic, and work on providing links to great resources your readers will love -- they'll thank you for it, and link to you for it.


• Fight bloggers block by getting inventive, and doing some research.

Some of the best blog specific resources for copy writing, and linkbaiting are:

• Brian Clark's CopyBlogger.com


• Darren Rowse's Content Tips


• Performancing Content Section


2. Make it Easy for People to Link to You
All of the above tips on writing more attractive, useful and linkable copy are geared to two things:

Providing what your readers want
Gaining links
Links are the currency with which one trades on the web, the lingua franca of the internet and key to ranking, and traffic. Hint: They're really, really important ok?

Essentially, you're looking for this:

Links coming to your posts, from many different sources
Links preferably have relevant keywords in the text used to make the link and again preferably come from sites on a similar topic
Links from trusted, authoritative sites
Apart from writing great linkable copy, there are a few things you can do to make sure that your posts get linked, and hence ranked aswell as get more bang for your buck per link.

Encourage readers to submit your posts to Digg and del.icio.us, or more specific link sites depending on your subject matter. Those categories in del.icio.us for example, are exported by users to their own blogs (targeted, keyworded link text = good), and they often kick off a knock on effect [pdf] that can have wild implications for your Search traffic.

• There are varios widgets for most blog software to do the above for you, just have a search through your blog softwares list of plugins.


• Where possible, make sure your urls contain your keywords. Contrary to popular opinion, this is not because Search engines pay particularly more attention to urls with keywods, but because people often just paste urls into comments, blog posts and forums where they are automatically linked by the software. Those links, contain the keywords, and it's keywords in links, from authoratitive, trusted sites, that are what we want.


• Place a "link to this post" widget on your blogs templates


• Ask other bloggers in your niche for links -- but don't make a pest of yourself, nobody likes to be hassled, and some people turn down link requests on general principle (me for example..). See Trisha's thread in the Performancing forums on link exchanges for a lively discussion on the merits of the dreaded link exchange. -- My personal advice is dont bother, do the other things listed here and all of it will fall into place.


• Network like crazy, see below...

Although there are lots of posts out there on links, I couldn't find much that would add value to what i've written above. If you have resources to share, please post them in the comments.

• Graywolfs SEO Blog


• Search Engine Watch


• Aaron Wall's Threadwatch.org


• Greg Boser's WebGuerrilla


• Matt Cutts - Google


• Jill Whalens HighRankings Forum


• Aaron Wall's SEOBook.com


• Digital Point Forums


• Loren Baker's Search Engine Journal