If you own an ecommerce store, then the best and easiest way to get noticed online is by having irresistible content. This is content, which is funny or useful and so interesting that social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc. flock to the site to start link baiting!

Does it work on ecommerce sites?

Probably not, which explains why most link baiting happens across blogs and not ecommerce sites! Bloggers can be quite clannish and they tend to exchange links and correspond with each other far more often than the non-bloggers. The best way to get noticed through your content is by having ‘juicy’ content on a separate page. It could be a standalone blog, which pertains to the theme of your ecommerce site or a microsite of the original ecommerce site. Either ways, posting such link bait worthy content on a separate page gets you noticed quicker by others in the social media scene.

What sort of link baits work?

You could use educational and how-to videos, top 10 listings, checklists, tools, cartoons, widgets, funny videos, YouTube embedded videos, blog plugins and a whole lot of other tools to ensure link bait worthy content. The remarkable aspect about social networking is that Web 2.0 has opened up a whole world of tools you can leverage to ensure more link baiting!

Insider friends

This is where your ability to network and socialize within the social media framework pays off! The trick of getting your content to the home page of a newsworthy site like Reddit, Digg or StumbleUpon is by having friends in that community who can influence others.

Being remarkable

The key to getting truly noticed in link baiting is to have content, which is remarkable and not commonplace. This automatically translates into original content, which should not be recycled at all! As long as your content stands apart from the crowd, is interesting and humorous, you can safely assume it to be worthy of link baiting across social media sites.

How to be remarkable?

There are many ways to get your content noticed online.

-         Controversy: One way, probably the most popular way, is to get controversial. You could start by attacking a highly popular blogger on a particular post he or she has made. However, since such a person would have a huge fan base, you need to be extra careful while adopting such a strategy.

-         Exposing scams: The other way to get your content to stand out is by expose a scam or adopt a stance, which is opposite to what most people are adopting.

-         Insider information: Scoops or insider stories always garner lots of interest. If you are the first to cover an exclusive story then you earn the success of having link bait worthy content! If you attended a prestigious event you could post pictures of it to get people to notice. These photos could be reused by other bloggers using Creative Commons License. This way, your word gets across multiple sites with no effort!

-         Using freebies: Freebies always work well in attracting social media people. You could give out special software, tools, plugins or themes, wallpapers etc. for free. This will get your site plenty of attention in the social media scene.

-         Memes: This refers to a concept or idea, which is meant to be copied. The more original and interactive an idea is, the more it will be shared and be spread. This will fetch you higher SERPs online and better site rankings as well!

-         Themed content: If your ecommerce store is about life insurance, you could try an innovative concept by listing 10 or 11 things about Death! This may sound strange but it seems an insurance company actually adopted this tactic and received huge responses on Digg! In fact, the more original and whacky your idea, the more link bait worthy it is!

The power behind it