Link Baiting for Wine Marketers: Hook, Line & Sinker
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Getting one-way links from trusted websites is one of the more difficult tasks in SEO. However, as the internet evolved from static to active, new strategies have emerged that enable internet marketers to get these coveted links.
Of these, one of the most effective is Link Baiting. For those of you who don’t know, Link Baiting refers to a piece of content created with the intention of dispersing it into the web community, who will find value in it and link to it through blogs, social media sites and web applications.
In general, there are two types of Link Bait; quality content and controversial content. From an SEO perspective, it’s debatable which is more effective; but from a wine marketing point of view, producing quality Link Bait is best for brand image and reputation.
Example: Inertia’s Direct Trade Initiative
Inertia Beverage recently released their direct trade initiative; which allows small wineries to distribute their product to restaurants and retailers in New York. This piece of information received a ton of attention from the blogosphere, resulting in at least eight very influential blogs writing about it and linking to Inertia’s blog.
Although they mistaking use the “long tail” model in describing what they are doing with direct trade, their release garnered enough attention from bloggers to write about it, and link to their blog.
It’s easier for blogs and web 2.0 sites to produce Link Bait, but is by no means restricted to the active web. Static sites can produce Link Bait through the creative use of winery news, wine releases and winery events. Wine bloggers are continually looking for interesting topics to discuss, but it is up to the winery to produce the interesting content.
Here are some Link Baiting techniques for wine marketers;
- Talk about online wine communities;
- Take recent events and make them interesting and relevant to the online wine community;
- Be provocative or controversial (use with caution);
- Write about interesting events happening at your winery;
- Write interesting headlines with the intent of spreading them;
- Write a review on a particular wine; then send that wine to influential wine bloggers.
Understanding the basics of Link Baiting is the first step in producing “link worthy” content. Once you determine what the wine bloggers want to talk about, all you have to do is write the content and expose the web community to it. It is in these steps that you can effectively use the viral nature of the active web.
Ryan Fujiu is a contributing newsletter editor for WineMarketer.com. He developed Calwineries.com, and is also a SEO for Advantage Consulting Services focusing on Social Media Optimization. You can reach Ryan at ryan@calwineries.com.
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