A couple weeks ago I seriously riled some folks up. It was fun, but now I want to show you why I did it and how perfectly my fiendish blog-traffic-linking plan has unfolded so far. If you haven’t yet, definitely read my recent post about misusing five words. If you’ve already been there, you know there was a little controversy stirred up, but otherwise, a lot of fun talking about the idea. If you hadn’t guessed yet, that post was not really about screwing up the English language at all. In fact, it was an experiment in linkbait. What is linkbait? Oh my, where have you been? Please allow me to refer you to the number one Google result for the term linkbait by Matt Cutts (at least it’s number one as I write this).  

It Sounds a Little Dirty

The word linkbait sounds like it could be a bad thing, or at least, it could have a few negative connotations. In fact, it’s not bad at all if you do it right. Linkbait is essentially nothing more than writing a great headline that attracts a reader to click your link and commit to reading your article. And if the article is good enough, they cannot resist bookmarking it, or linking to it on either social media sites, their own blog, or their website.

When newspaper, or magazine editors select a headline, they’re creating the equivalent of linkbait. They make the headline as compelling as possible and attach it to a phenomenal article. And the best articles are passed around by friends who may eventually subscribe to the publication, if they like the article enough. This is offline linkbait. More like, readbait, or make-you-not-able-to-put-the-magazine-down-and-also-insist-your-friends-read-it bait. You get the picture. If you want your blog, or web site (or printed ad, for that matter) to attract and keep readers, you must learn how to write headlines and posts (articles) that are so compelling that a majority of casual observers click through and commit to spending a little time with you and then even bookmark you for reference and sharing. A curious thing about this:

The headline is useless if you write a terrible article and the article is useless if you write a terrible headline.  

Doing it Wrong Can Hurt You

If you’re just writing a snappy headline and it has a crappy article behind it, you probably just lost yourself a whole mess of readers. You made a great promise with the headline, but failed to deliver with the article. There’s good linkbait and bad linkbait and if your article is weak, or an obvious attempt to linkbait-and-switch, you will get what you deserve: a bad reputation and no catch-of-the-day, AKA link love. I’ve already written a post about how to write great headlines and there are some good references there to get you started. That post, by the way, had a terrible headline and is a perfect example of how to fail epically at writing a linkbait headline. I got almost zero readers for that post, although it did have some good info in it. Word to the wise—seriously consider your headlines.  

So, Does Linkbait Work?

I’ve been practicing and diligently doing the training in the Social Power Linking program and my last, best attempt at a linkbait piece succeeded better than I could have expected in my wildest dreams. I spent probably five hours on that post, whittling away every non-esssential word and making sure it flowed smoothly, etc. I also spent a good 30 minutes on the title alone, to which I grant the most credit for having made that post so popular. My post on five misused words got more traffic than any other post I’ve ever made.  

In fact, during the two days following my linkbait post, this blog received over 1800 pageviews and is now up to approximately 4870 pageviews at the time of this post. Unique visitors climbed to over 900 during those two days and have continued to flow in ever since. I got more unique visitors and overall traffic from that one post than all my other posts combined to date. 

A Few Resources

If you want to learn more about the fine art of linkbaiting, the following resources will really cover almost everything. I owe a lot to SPL, but I also spent a lot of time reading the posts linked below and I want to thank the authors for taking the time to put that information together. I’d also love to hear about your own experiments in linkbaiting as well as any advice that the resources below may have left out.  Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMM The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited

And if you don’t feel like reading right now, check out Aaron Wall’s video on linkbaiting, How to: Create Linkbait Every Day:

And finally, here are just a few more linkbait resources you might find useful:

• 5 Linkbait Ideas Any Blog Can Use
• Linkbait in difficult industries
• Beyond Linkbait with Media and Blogger Relations – SES NY
• Productivity, How-to and Advice Sites: Making Linkbait Useful Again
• Five Simple Linkbait Metrics (& How To Measure Them Cheaply)

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Day-before-yesterday I read a great post over at skelliewag.org that stirred up an excellent discussion about whether or not it’s important to write well online. I’m not a great writer myself and, in fact, I started this blog in part to get a little more practice.

But this got me thinking about writing in general, word usage and credibility. So I put on my tall, pointy hat and decided to post my opinion about five words that really annoy me when misused. Here they are in no particular order.

Our first word is unique. No, really, that’s the word!

Unique
Like being pregnant, you can’t be a little bit unique.

Wrong
Hey I woke up the other day and realized I was somewhat unique. Later I got over it.

Right
Hey I woke up the other day and realized I was unique. Thankfully, I’ll never get over it.

Next up, a word which will probably produce a little argument. I maintain that, unlike unique which should never have a modifier, quality must always have one.

Quality
I saw someone write (for the thousandth time at least) that, “this thing is a quality piece of work.” Or, in another instance, “that’s a quality blog.” The only thing missing is a clue as to whether the confounded thing is any good or not! Quality has to have a modifier. Bad quality, good quality; the word quality by itself is utterly meaningless.

But I’m afraid it may be far too late to get that issue fixed as it’s really gotten embedded in the English-speaking world’s psyche, no thanks to the foolish aristocrat who first pushed that concept out there in the 14th century. Blast that dictionary for contradicting me anyway. Nevertheless, I’m right.

Wrong
Hey buddy, you gonna’ finish that quality bowl of lecithin gravy?

Right
Hey buddy, you gonna’ finish that top quality bowl of lecithin gravy?

Irregardless
There is, in fact, no such word. I finally figured out why this is such a common mistake. I believe this to be the illegitimate child of the marriage of “irrespective” and “regardless”. It may sound like it’s a good idea, but regardless of your intense desire to misuse this one, and irrespective of all the reasons you might offer in your defense, using “irregardless” is probably the biggest no-no of the bunch since it’s not a real word.

Wrong
Bill continued to awkwardly reach toward the precariously balancing bowl of warm, lecithin gravy, irregardless of the inevitable disaster which was sure to follow.

Right
Bill continued to awkwardly reach toward the precariously balancing bowl of warm, lecithin gravy, regardless of the inevitable disaster which was sure to follow.

Hopefully
It’s almost always used incorrectly these days. Cotton really wrecked it for everyone back in 1702. “. . . Hopefully, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Hopefully I’ll do this, hopefully I’ll get that; this is just so wrong I can’t begin to even tell you. (Granted, according to the dictionary, my attitude about this word apparently places me in the traditionalist camp, but I’ll address that in a sentence at the end of this post.)

Wrong
Hopefully, the unicorn-riding space travellers from Alpha Centauri will arrive and give us plankton, chocolate and some sort of odd, gravy-like substance.

Right
I hope the unicorn-riding space travellers from Alpha Centauri will arrive and give us plankton, chocolate and some sort of odd, gravy-like substance.

In the wrong sentence above, the literal meaning suggests that the space travelers will be feeling hopeful as they arrive bearing their lovely gifts; they will arrive feeling hopeful. However, 99.9% of the time, the writer writing this intends to suggest that they themselves are the ones feeling hopeful about the arrival of the space travelers bearing gifts. Always ask yourself, “who is feeling hopeful?” and then make sure the sentence is reflecting that properly. (I know, purists will also say I should have said, “s/he himself/herself is the one feeling hopeful” but man, isn’t that awkward!?.)

Anxious Instead of Eager
Many people use the word anxious to describe an upcoming event they are excited about. In fact, by using the word anxious, they are saying they are worried about it. If you’re excited, say you’re eager. If you’re worried, then use anxious.

Wrong
Ludlow was anxious to open all the incredible presents he knew he would be receiving at his very first lecithin-gravy party.

Right
Ludlow was eager to open all the incredible presents he knew he would be receiving at his very first lecithin-gravy party.

Now many will probably hassle me endlessly about the swiftly changing nature of the spoken language arguing that anything that gets used often enough becomes validated by its very ubiquity.

But hey man, I’m tellin’ ya, if we don’t have at least a few ground rules and standards, I might as well start riggle plag mimmbly bum toothbrush the squirrelpaste. Know what i mean? How will we understand each other if we make up our own rules and just run with them? I’m as excited about change as the next guy, just as long as it’s change for the better.

If you are as excited and curious about language as I am, and if you want to find more ways to avoid those embarrassing usage boners, have a look at some of these related articles I found during my travels.

10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid
Common Errors in English by Paul Brians
Style Guide from The Economist
Words & Expressions Commonly Misused from Bartleby.com

Disclaimer: I’m no expert grammarian and also don’t think anyone is a dummy. I’m just a grammar muckraker raking up some muck. Hope you liked it. I also encourage healthy debate.

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Remember when I said this was an experimental marketing blog? Did I not say that yet? Ah, right then . . . this is an experimental marketing blog. That means a couple things actually.

This is certainly my experiment with marketing and blogging ideas in general and blogging about it all at the same time. But it’s also a blog in which I’ll use ideas I think will be useful and we’ll all see if any of them work, or not.

Don’t worry, I’ll be documenting my successes as well as my failures. Even the epic ones. Really. We will all win.

So about that headline . . . I’m reading a book on copywriting right now by one of the top practitioners of the art named Joseph Sugarman. I mentioned him in a recent post.

I was told, and have read many times elsewhere, that the headline is equally as important as the rest of your piece, sales letter, page, or whatever it is you’re writing. Some people rank it even higher.

That means that if you spend an hour on your post, you should spend an hour thinking about a headline to go with it. Wow.

In fact, sometimes I invent the headline before I ever think about what the article will be about.

Today’s post was an experiment with headlines and curiosity and if there’s one thing that makes a huge difference in whether, or not anybody ever sees what you write, it’s getting the headline right.

So did you read this because of the headline? I’m curious. Let me know.

And here are a few good resources for writing headlines:

1. The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines
2. Headlines: Making an Impact — Accurately [I totally violated the rules in this guide. Hmmm . . . let's see if it works anyway.]
3. The Best Headlines Are Not Just Written For Google or Digg

Hope that was fun. It was meant to be.

-Zack

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I have been reading a number of great resources recently and today I thought I’d share a couple of them. If you haven’t heard of these I think you’ll be well-served to have a look. If you have them, I’d love to hear your comments and any suggestions for further reading.

Writing ad copy is the mainstay of marketing. I wanted to learn all I could about marketing and the one thing I heard more than any other was, learn copywriting, or at least learn to recognize good copy so that when you need to hire someone to write it for you, you won’t be taken for a ride. So, to that end, I’ve found a couple books on writing ad copy that are recommended across the board as best-of-breed and I’m reading them right now.

The first is, Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs by Joseph Sugarman. What a mouthful; and what a price!

If you search for that on Amazon you will quickly realize that this book is out of print and sells for about $95 used. However, I did a little looking around and discovered that Adweek republished this as, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook and you can pick it up for a much more reasonable price.

The other copywriting book is, Tested Advertising Methods by John Capleswhich is also a classic and required reading in many marketing classes.

The most enlightening thing about reading these books is the way it changes how you look at all the ads and blogs out there. As you compare everything, the good stuff suddenly pops right out at you. It saves you a lot of time, in fact, when you don’t bother with stuff that’s quickly identifiable as sub-par.

Of course, I’m also an advocate of a number of plain old, traditional books on writing. The number one book in my library that will profoundly change and improve your writing, whether for ad copy, for writing a masterpiece of short fiction, or for the greatest blog post of all time is certainly, On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Granted, I still don’t follow all of his suggestions. I tend to have nightmare sentences that run on for days so you can imagine how rough my writing was before I read it.

And lastly, if you’re just looking for some assistance with grammar and usage, check out the Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation blog. I’m particularly interested in the Blue Book post on commas, semicolons and colons as I still have a bear of a time with those bits.

I hope you find some enlightening reading in the resources above. Until next time, don’t get sick. Or maybe DO get sick if that will help you catch up on some reading. But just a little sick; nothing dreadful, please.

-Zack

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It’s painful to see a majority of online marketers and buyers stuck in the fast buck syndrome. I imagine it happens because every once in a while it actually appears to work for one of the parties involved, but it never lasts. And then disappointment and disillusionment set in. I’m speaking from personal experience as a buyer and a seller. But mostly just a buyer observing it all.

Even many of the folks I’ve bought genuinely good products from have forgotten, or never knew, how to market without arm-twisting and “yelling”.

I think hyperbole is a kind of lying and we’re all long since weary of the next “incredible, stupendous, amazing” product. I know the moment I see any verbiage like that I shut down now. And sadly many really good products are now unwittingly being cloaked in hyperbole and not making it into the hands of folks who might genuinely benefit from them. I know I’m probably missing out on some good products because the business owner is clothing their offering in so much overblown language that it’s a complete turn-off for me and I smell what I have learned must be BS a mile off.

How can we sort honest business folks with a great product, but bad, hyperbolic advertising from the scam artists who are still trying to trick us into buying? It’s hard sometimes. I rely on word-of-mouth recommendations and reputation almost exlusively now. Kind of like I did before I got interested in marketing studies. Funny, that.

So here’s a tip for the day: don’t use hyperbole in your sales copy, in your blog, in your conversations online. Really. Yes, there is definitely a place for exclamation marks here and there. But man, if you use them sparingly, they will work wonders. In fact, don’t use them where they’re most expected and they’ll work even more powerfully. Really.

Building word-of-mouth recommendations and a great reputation is critical to creating a great business that will last, and a great reputation is infinitely more valuable than a few bucks made in the short term by yelling and screaming about the greatest thing since margarine-flavored lollipops.

[I include loud, blinking graphics, pages covered in ads so completely you can't find the post, and loud video and audio that starts playing the moment you hit the page under the category of "screaming-at-your-reader", and although that's not hyperbole, it really bugs me so I had to type it. Maybe that's a good subject for another post later on . . . .]

Thanks for reading this far. If you made it, that is. I know I do go on sometimes.

-Zack!

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