So what is Link Bait?
Link bait is basically content on your blog/ site that other webmasters WANT to link to. Not because you ask them to but because they WANT to. An example:- Breaking News articles and How to guides fall in the link bait category.
How exactly does it help?
SEO - It helps greatly in
SEO as it creates more links to your site without yuo having to pay for links or exchange links. Thus increasing your SERP position getting you more traffic through
SEO
Traffic- It also increases the traffic in general to your site as since your article/site spreads, more and more people are directed to it through other sites/social networking sites.
Techniques of Link Baiting :-
1\ Tools : Give other site owners a tool which is informative, cool or helpful for them to use on their blog, with a link pointing back to your site. An example of this would be the How much your blog is worth too which has almost 27000 links pointing to it. Impressive i know.
2\ Contests : Hold some contests which people want to participate in. Offer an attracitive prize. You will be surprised to see the number of people that link to your site from theirs just mentioning that they participated in a contest on your site!
3\ Be First : if you’re the first in your niche to do, say or be something you’re likely to be linked to heavily by others in your niche. Being second, third, forth…. in your niche to do, say or be something will generally have less impact. For example take a look at the success of the Million Dollar Homepage in contrast to the main thousands of copycat pixel advertising sites that followed.
4\ Scoops - related to being first is breaking a story in your niche. Break a big enough story and the amount of others that link to you giving you credit for being the source of their own news posts can be quite massive.
5\ Lists - many examples of blog posts that seem to get a lot of link attention are very list oriented pieces. There is just something about a list that people latch onto, digest and want to pass on to others (just check out digg and delicious and you’ll see plenty of examples). Of course these days list posts are a dime a dozen so you’ll need to make your list useful and stand out in some way. If you do (and you have a little luck) you’ll be well on the way to being linked to.
6\ Give something away - think about the buzz that Oprah created when she gave every audience member a car a couple of years back and you see the power of what happens when you give something away. While giving every reader you have an extravagant gift like that might not be possible - the clever giving of gifts can definitely create a buzz.
Well these are according to me the best ones but theyre many out there. Be creative and come up wtith your own!