At the very heart of white hat link building, and indeed what separates it from other 'greyer' forms of acquiring links, is the premise that links should be 'earned', that is they should be editorially given.
Quite simply, great link building, starts with great content, and the stronger your 'bait', the easier your link building and outreach efforts will become.
So what makes for great link bait? Well , here are some ideas.
Taking something awesome and making it even better
Brian Dean has this tactic nailed with his 'skyscraper technique', which in a nutshell is finding previously popular and proven content, and making it better.
The great thing about this method is that you are taking the guesswork out of your link building and content marketing efforts as you: -
a) know the content will be popular (if you can get eyes on it)
b) you can run through the link profile of the old content to find hot link prospects
Make It More Visually Appealing
Take a boring list post and turn it into something visually awesome. This could simply mean creating some custom graphics, or perhaps including an infographic (great for outreach).
Of course, if those images are swipeable, even better!
Make It Longer
Sometimes all that's needed is to build on what's already there.
For example, if you find a list of 20 free tools to do x, you might turn it into a list of 40 free tools to do x... or better still 100 free tools to do x.
Make It More Comprehensive
Again, using the example of a list style post (20 ways to do x) that simply lists out methods, you could write up a mini tutorial on each method, instantly making the post more valuable.
Bring It Up To Date
Things change. Take advantage of this and find old, popular content that may be a little old hat and bring it up to date.
Widget/Tool
Creating an awesome tool, or widget is a great way to pick up high quality links.
One of my favourite examples is this interactive widget from ConcertHotels, which showcases the vocal ranges of the world's greatest singers in a beautiful visual format.
It picked up a lot of great links (over 500 referring domains), including this one from Time Magazine. That's the kind of link that can make a difference!
Of course, Ahrefs itself is an awesome tool that's often referenced in SEO tutorials and guides, resulting in a pretty impressive backlink profile (if we do say so ourselves!).
Videos
Videos are great link bait, and if you can stumble upon the magic formula of creating a video that goes viral (yes, sometimes it does seem like it takes a little magic), then your link profile will get a serious boost.
Notwithstanding the viral magic, you can of course share your video on numerous free channels – just make sure you include a link in the description.
News Roundups
If you can become a go-to source for news in your industry, then you will pick up regular links from other sites, which will cite you as a source.
This could be as simple as a weekly roundup, or, depending on your industry, more regular news updates.
You could also consider submitting your site for inclusion in Google news, which can be a nice source of additional traffic (and link yielding eyeballs) if accepted.
Further Reading
Recommended Tools