You’ve probably heard me say this before, that links are the currency of the Web, at least as far as search engines are concerned. Therefore, no links = no rankings, and lousy links = lousy rankings. I am speaking at a MarketingProfs virtual seminar on Feb. 16 on “Inside Secrets to Building Links for Online Publicity, Buzz and Search Engine Optimization” along with link guru Eric Ward. Sign up now! One of the many topics we will be discussing in next week’s webinar is “link baiting” — making your site an irrestistible link target for bloggers and site owners. The Art of Linkbaiting has some great suggestions (particularly if you’ve got a blog):

• Offer a niche-specific blogroll, tool, How-To, or compilation of news stories.
• Post a scoop.
• Expose a story as flawed or a fraud
• Be a contrarian about a story, product, or prominent blogger’s opinion.
• Be humorous. Good topics include a bizzare pic of your subject, “10 things I hate about…”, and “You know you’re a when…”
• Publish or commission some original research
• Creative-Commons-license photos you made of an event you’re blogging about
• Make available for free a theme, plugin or piece of software
• Start a meme that others can replicate and that links back to you (e.g. buttons/stickers/tools for bloggers/webmasters to post on their sites, contests, quizzes, surveys, etc.)

As you can probably tell, building links is both art and science. It requires a great set of tools and tactics, as well as loads of creative ideas. One might even go so far as to valuate a site, such as a blog, on its links. If you have a blog, for fun you might try out the free tool at the Business Opportunities Weblog and see how much your blog is worth. The computation is based on the link-to-dollar ratio of the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal. According to the tool, my blog is worth over $40,000. Not bad for some random musings posted on an irregular basis! 😉