Hi, Sad Dawson here. Now link building has always been and continues to be a crucial part of the SEO Jigsaw that you need to build authority and drive rankings in Google. And with the emergence of AI-based search like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, the importance of links in getting your site cited in responses means that link building becomes of even greater importance. So I've grouped together all the best episodes of the podcast that touch on link building into a series dedicated to all the many strategies and tactics you can use to get more links to your content. So let's get on to the podcast. Hello and welcome to SEO Is Not That Hard. I'm your host, Ed Dawson, the founder of Keywordspeopleuse.com, the place to find and organise the questions people ask online. I'm an STO, developer, affiliate marketer, and entrepreneur. I've been building and monetising websites for over 20 years, and I've bought and sold a few along the way. I'm here to share with you the STO knowledge, hints and tips I've built up over the years. Hi there, Ed here. Uh welcome to this latest episode of SEO Is Not That Hard. Today I'm going to be talking about link building using EgoBait. Now, EgoBait, that's just defined it to start with. Basically, what we're trying to do here is we're trying to generate links to our website by um stoking or stroking other people's egos. Um so this is where instead of writing a piece of content um and then hoping people will link to it without having anyone specific in mind, this is where we're actually gonna look at creating some content which we're gonna aim at a particular person or company or organization with the aim of getting um those people or organizations to link back to our website. And we're gonna do that by actually creating some content that is actually gonna feature them in a way that's gonna make them want to link back to us. So this is just playing on the fact that most people, if you talk about them, they're gonna listen. Um you know, I've had pages written about me or about my companies um online, and whenever they come up, whenever I come across them, or whether whenever I'm introduced to them by the person who's written them, I'm gonna pay attention in a way that I'm not going to to any other content, and it's not just specific to me. I think everyone in the world, every company, every organization, every person is gonna feel the same about that. So let's look at um some different types of eco bait. The three types that I think work best are interviews, roundup posts, and awards. So let's sort of dive into each one. So the first stuff is interviews, right? So in this one, what you do is where you feature um the influencer that you're trying to get a link from and you interview them. Uh, this could be a podcast interview, it could be a one-on-one interview where you actually speak to them and write an interview, or it could just be where you send them um a whole bunch of questions and ask them to um reply back with written answers. Um obviously it depends on how well you know this person to um get in front of them. Um, but you know, I think you'll find that most people like being approached for this kind of thing. So if you were to just send uh contact them however and ask them what their their favourite format is, um then you'll probably like to get a response from them. And what you do is you um come with some good questions, hopefully thoughtful questions, um, that helps tease out their expertise, helps them talk about themselves and helps them promote themselves essentially. And then you create um an article, a post from that, put it on your website. Like I say, if it's a podcast, you might make a podcast out of it. Um and you might from a podcast also make a written um transcript from that and create a written piece of content from that. I've certainly been interviewed on other podcasts where obviously I've been featured in the podcast, and then also they've they've subsequently created written content from that. Obviously, once you've got your interview post up and live with them, you obviously want to share it with them and say, Hey, I've got the I've got the interview live, thanks for doing it for us. Do you mind sharing it with you know on your website and with your followers? And you'll find you know lots of times people are quite happy to do that. I've certainly shared across my socials and other places, anywhere that I've been um interviewing any podcast I've been on, so these things work really well, and you know, there's no way I would have necessarily promoted those people's websites if they'd just come to me and said, Will you promote my website for no reason whatsoever? Do a bit of ego bait, I'm straight in. And like you would be too. Now, a roundup post is very similar to doing interviews, except you're not just featuring one person, um, you're gonna feature experts across your industry. Um, and this is likely to be less in depth on um that one person and more about a particular, say, trending topic or particular technical item, something like that, where you are gonna get a range of people to um quote across it. Um obviously the great thing about this is you can essentially do the same things in Choose, but it's a bit more short form for each person who's been featured, less of a uh input required from them. It's more likely going to be just written responses rather than like a podcast type thing. Um but you get to cover more people, you get to stroke more egos, and therefore you're more more likely to get more um backlinks or more um uh more shares from these these influencers, these people, these experts that you want to get recognition from. So similar. You mean you'll have seen these things, I'm sure that as you know, as you've come across um web pages, websites doing this exact same thing. Then awards, the third one. Now this one um yeah, works better, I think, with companies than the first two. The first two tend to be very personal related. Um you know, it's hard to interview a company. Obviously, you can approach a company founder, but it's hard to interview a company. Whereas a company you can give an award to, and companies like to share awards. Um in fact, most awards that people you know enter enter and have to share, they actually pay to enter. There's there's businesses out there that make a whole living out of creating awards ceremonies and then enticing people to apply. Often they have to pay to apply, and to get to the awards ceremony, they have to pay for a table. Um, and you know, essentially it's just an events company that's sucking people in by giving out uh you know, creating awards categories and then getting people to come and pay to be at the you know overpriced seats at their awards ceremonies. You don't if you don't pay for your table, um, don't get to go. And even if you're paying for a table, you're not guaranteed to win anything. But that that slightly digresses from using it for link building. If you're using it for link building, you might not you might be looking at it slightly differently. And I think I've actually spoken about this on a previous podcast about how you can specialise in using awards as a way of um gaining links and getting your uh yeah, other other websites, other sometimes even competitors to talk about. We used it with Bullmannick UK, and we gave out awards um for the let's say the best supplier, the fastest supplier, the one with the best reviews, all those kind of things. And that's the kind of thing that can get those companies to link back to you because if you've been given an award, they like to tell people, hey, we've been rewarded this award, and they'll link back to you. So again, that's a way of stroking the ego of a company. Although awards also works fine for individuals as well. Um, so it just it works that much better with companies as well. Other types of ego bait include things like listicles, such as where you might do a you know the top 50 SEO experts you should be following this year, um, where you can just list a whole load of people and hopefully you know you can either meant contact them directly and say, hey, we've been you've been covered, do you want to share it? Or you know, uh they might hope they might find it themselves. The more you think people you put in, you you know, you might find that um they're less likely to want to sort of promote their competitors. Also, if they're too closely related to what you do, you might find that kind of thing isn't quite sophisticated enough for them. Um, but it can work really well. Um, and it's obviously a lot easier to put together than having to think about questions or do awards or you know, do that kind of that kind of level of effort. Um, but because it's low effort, yeah, the reward might not be quite as great, but you know, it's worth trying and also directories, directories can also be um quite a good ego bait, especially if you're putting together um very specific directories. Um so sometimes directories of say you know keyword tools, um you know, you might find that doing something like that, you might get keyword tool suppliers might link to you if you're cutting their directory. Um but yeah, again, tends to be less effective than the ones where you actually try and get people's input into them or create very specific awards for them. But still, all those kind of things can be worth a try. Well, just to finish, right? The key thing with any ego bait is a getting people on board um with it. If you can get people on board to give an interview or to um be interested in an award, you know, getting people's input up front can really help, especially for those very specific ones where you're gonna feature someone in depth and then follow-up. The follow-up is really, really important because if you don't ask people to link back to you or to share it with their audience, then they're not necessarily going to do it. So always follow up and just suggest, oh yeah, would you maybe consider sharing it? Don't make it a a condition of doing the piece. They don't if you don't even want to make that condition up front because it will put people off if you do that. But once it's been done, if you've covered people in a way that that's nice to them, they like it, you know, you've made them look good, just ask them to share it, you'll find them more like they are and you might get your link or and your social shares, and that's why it's going to be worthwhile. So I hope that's been useful and giving you maybe a new idea to think about when you're looking at doing link building. Um, if you've got any questions, um then do give me a shout. Um and yeah, look forward to seeing you next time. Before I go, I just wanted to let you know that if you'd like a personal demo of our tools at Keywords People Use, that you can book a free, no obligation, one-on-one video call with me where I'll show you how we can help you level up your content by finding and answering the questions your audience actually have. You can also ask me any SEO questions you have. You just need to go to keywordspeopleuse.com slash demo, where you can pick a time and date that suits you for us to catch up. Once again, that's keywordspeopleuse.com slash demo, and you can also find that link in the show notes of today's episode. Hope to chat with you soon. Thanks for being a listener, I really appreciate it. Please subscribe and share, it really helps. SEO is not that hard, it's brought to you by Keywordspeople2Use.com, the place to find and organise the questions people ask online. See why thousands of people use us every day, try it today for free at KeywordspeopleUse.com. To get an instant hit of more STO tips, then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick SEO tips in the show notes of today's episode. If you want to get in touch, have any questions, I'd love to hear from you. I'm acting channel 5 on Twitter, or you can email me at podcast at keywordspeopleuse.com. Bye for now, see you in the next episode of SEO Is Not That Hard.