(you can also get some ideas on how to launch a book and become a bestseller)

As I usually do for each Bloggers Unite initiative, I am taking part, but as usual I want to at least try to keep on topic, so I can connect with my readers better.

Good Linkbait

How would I define good linkbait?

It is the kind of linkbait that gives you that warm fuzzy feeling that you did something to make a difference, provided a useful tool, some great content that people found exceptionally useful, or when you invested a huge amount of time researching a story so that you could break real news before anyone else.

The guys at Blogcatalog and their army of bloggers genuinely believe that through blogging they can make a difference to the world, and the links they gain to a subdomain on their site dedicated to promoting good causes are well deserved.
There is no “bait and switch” they drive traffic and juice to the Bloggers Unite subdomain, and whilst there are links from there back to their main site, and their blog, there are also plenty of external links as well.

It is a genuine effort to promote good causes, and Blogcatalog reap the reward of constantly growing traffic and mindshare.

The bloggers involved can even benefit from it.

Today, 2 bloggers were highlighted on CNN

Dead Rooster is a humor blog and blogged about helping the victims devastated by Cyclone Narigis in Myanmar.

Likewise Kevin for once wasn’t writing pointless banter

Both were mentioned by Veronica De La Cruz in a special segment on CNN all about today’s blogging for human rights.

What can both of them do? Well now they have both been featured on CNN, why not make use of that fact for some social proof and create a simple “As seen on CNN” badge, and link it to the posts they have written celebrating the appearance.

So that was doing things right, what I look on as “Linkbait for Good”.

Bad Linkbait

I am using the term “bad” because it is the opposite of good, not to make any kind of specific moral judgement, though ultimately doing something that is linkworthy for a charity is always going to end up being more morally uplifting than doing something which is self-serving.

Just over 20 years ago a newspaper launched in the UK that took the tabloid press in new directions, the Sunday Sport. The current owners don’t seem to have much of a website, in fact I had to lift that link from a Reuter’s press release.
They could do insane traffic in the web’s current climate, even just doing a rerun of the “best of” articles.

At the time I was working in a pub at weekends, and I can still remember some of the headlines from around their launch date.

“Double Decker Bus Found On The Moon”
“Woman Gave Birth To A 12lb Trout”

You see as a feature of Sunday lunch at the pub, around that time, along with the heavily salted roast potatoes on the bar as snacks and a few pints, a group would gather around the pub manager going through the headlines, or occasionally one of the other regulars. One copy of the paper effectively passed through 50 pairs of hands in a 2 hour period, and it wasn’t for the T & A.

There are quite likely very similar newspapers in the US, and I hear Fox News has some similar characteristics…

This was/is entertainment, it is not meant to be taken seriously

Stories such as this make exceptional linkbait, especially in niches where it is hard to otherwise accumulate quality links.

If you are looking for something like that, you need a linkbait specialist. Lyndon provides ample proof that this works.

It generates laughs, it is entertainment, at times it can spread like a wild fire even if it is untrue (especially if it is untrue), but whilst I appreciate the humor, and especially appreciated it in my youth, it leaves me with that empty feeling.

The same happens when people generate fairly mediocre lists of items, pretty them up with interesting pictures and screenshots, and proclaim them as the very top X blah blah blah.

I know this stuff is popular, I know it works, I know it generates links and for some that is the sole purpose of the endeavour.

Links = SERPs = Traffic = $$$

Ultimately the rich get richer, and then make large donations to charity for the tax benefit

I had been planning to write about Bloggers Unite about a week ago, with a followup post yesterday, but most of yesterday I was again without a connection. I gave up at 7am.

On Blogcatalog there is now a list forming of all the blogs that took part, and one way for me to give a little something back is to link to all of them.

I haven’t just copied a list of URLs, I have actually visited each site and read every amazing article listed – there is a lot of kindness in the world and many of these stories are quite remarkable and touching.

Many of the posts used a generic Bloggers Unite acts of Kindness title, so where needed I have used a title that is appropriate to the story told, or captured the essence of the story or key phrase.

If you didn’t take part I encourage you to read the stories that catch your eye. Many are really quite moving.

Starlight: Acts Of Kindness
You Can Feel Good About Good
Grander than the Bell and the Red Suit
Bloggers Unite (a touching post about her Mum)
Jericho Fans Become Boo’s Angels
Singing At A Retirement Home
John Gebhardt Caring For A Little Girl in Iraq
Pay It Forward & Acts of Random Kindness
Examples and Quotes From Acts of Kindness
Recycling & The Boys Brigade Charity Gift Box Project
Helping A Pregnant Damsel In Childbirth
Collecting Litter
My Inspiration – What are you grateful for?
Living In A Box
Caro Gesù Bambino ti voglio avvisare…
Teaching My 5 Year Old The Gift Of Giving
Want to have an amazing Christmas?
Give A Smile
Acts of Kindness Should Be Part Of Our Daily Lives
Its Never Too Late To Do An Act Of Kindness
Bell Ringers & Paper Trees
A White Cat For Christmas
Xmas Charity Appeal
The Beaming Faces of The Tiny Tots
Helping A Colleague
Hugs For The Lonely
Tribute To Rescued Cats And Dogs
Crochet Some Recycled Wheelchair and Walker Totes
Promote Thrift Stores
The Greatness Of Human Kindness and Compassion
Acts of Kindness While Christmas Shopping
Donations To Carol For A Cause
Child’s Play
Scraping Snow To Make Friends
Caring For Family
Let People Know That Someone Loves Them
Random Acts of Kindness Should Last All Year Long
Kindness Like Love Is Unconditional
Follow your heart and do your best work…
Buying Gifts From The Hunger Site Store
Donors Choose
Cooking Pancakes
One Should Do The Right Thing For No Other Reason Than It’s Right
Free Rice – Provide and Learn
Magnificent Monday: My Mother
Sharing Books With Random People
Ideas For Acts of Kindness
A Simple Act of Kindness Affected Three Lives
Acts of Kindness: A Wardrobe Full of Compassion
Bloggers Unite: Small Thing Make Big Thing
Bloggers Unite: Save Some Cats
Ellie’s Act of Kindness – A Guided Meditation
It’s Not Only Human Beings That Are Capable Of Acts Of Kindness
Touching Other’s Lives
Secret Santa
The Ripple Effect Of Acts Of Kindness
9 Acts of Christmas Kindness
Mystery Reggae Man
Caring – it all begins at home
Operation Christmas Child
Bloggers unite. Streetwise.
Save The Wild Side and Alley Cats
Each Minute Passes In Own Life We Must Spend It In Helping Others
Reading Marathon
I made someone today feel warm and human.
Make The World A Better Place
Altruistic Disease
Bloggers Unite: Highlighting Acts Of Kindness In Colon Panama
Bloggers Unite: Crafts for China
Take One Activity In Your Day
There Is So Much Good In People
Buzzards Bay Area Habitat For Humanity
Kind Classes
An Act Of Kindness Should Be Spontaneous And Not Forced
Helping Filipino children read their way out of poverty
My kindness towards poverty
Animal Rescue Charities
A day at the Senior Citizen Center
Cub Scouts At The Food Bank
A Day In A Camp
12 Gifts of Christmas: Kindness
Delivering Angel Tree Gifts in the Spirit of Christmas
Discovering Love and Kindness By Donating Blood
One Good Deed Every Day
The Kindness Of Strangers
Helping With Essential Winter Tasks
Counting on Kindness
Give and Give Back
Words by Bloggers & Acts of Kindness
Hurricane Sidr: acts of kindness
Ridiculously Easy Ways To Spread Some Kindness Around
Beautiful Minds: a day’s meal -Used in the best way
Small and Simple Acts Of Kindness
Are you the girl with sweet smile?
I Fostered a Baby Elephant, Tong Jan
Bloggers Unite & Kiva
Homeless and Lost Souls
An act of kindness that’s been going on for years

A little personal act of kindness

Whilst I was over in the UK last, and in fact every trip I usually pop in to see old neighbours, many of whom being long-standing friends of my parents are now quite elderly, and help with small chores, even just taking the rubbish out or updating them on life in other parts of the world.
Whilst I was writing this I received an email to inform me that one of those neighbours passed away on Friday. I almost didn’t have time to say hello on my last visit, and am so glad I did.

I know that an article covering the importance of good anchor text or choosing a niche would help a lot of people, but I would much prefer to just link through to other people I respect who have written about the subject as well, or in many cases better than I would do myself.

I have discussed in the past that I don’t write speed linking articles, and for some reason, despite how many hundreds or even 1000s of bloggers use speedlinking in their titles, or even have whole categories for such roundup link posts, I still rank highly for the term in Google.

Scott Jangro seems to be going through a similar dilemma to what I go through on an almost daily basis – stick to your self defined niche, or respond to the signals given to you by your traffic stats.

Vanessa Fox has saved me a whole load of time testing out lots of ways to aggregate profiles on social networks.

Whilst Diggers tend to bury security warnings as spam, they are never-the-less extremely important, well unless you want Aaron to break into your WordPress account in under 5 minutes. Upgrade Now

If you have a couple of hours to spend on your education, John Reese really knows a lot about increasing your income online, so I can’t think of anyone better to interview Shoemoney. There is a lot to be learnt, think of what it would be like to eavesdrop on a conversation between 2 top earners at a bar during a large convention.

That blog post I think is a landmark for affiliate marketing in more ways than one, as John Reese included a disclosure at the bottom for the affiliate links.

Who knows, maybe he wrote it after coming back from lunch with Ted Murphy of PayPerPost.

It is true, in John’s email newsletters he always declares affiliate links, in fact he highlights them, often asks you to clear your cookies before clicking through, and offers massive bonuses for using his links, but this is something different, and because John is so influential in affiliate marketing, I think this might might cause a lots of changes.

I even grabbed a screenshot

As it is memorial Weekend in the US, here are some charity links.

First of all Mark at Bloglyne is raising money to fight premature birth, what is on offer is a great deal.

Secondly Stephen Pierce has set a goal to feed over 1,000,000 million children
within 72 HOURS. Lots of free useful stuff on the site even if you don’t make a donation

“When You Download This Free Success Report We Will Donate A Plate Of Food To A Starving Child On Your Behalf. It’s That Simple. No Strings Attached.”

Tags: charity, disclosure, linking, niche marketing, payperpost, SEO Blog, social networking, WordPress Security
]]> http://andybeard.eu/787/letting-other-people-write-the-linkbait.html/feed 7 http://andybeard.eu/757/charity.html http://andybeard.eu/757/charity.html#comments Tue, 22 May 2007 10:29:19 +0000 Andy Beard http://andybeard.eu/2007/05/charity.html Charity is important and charity organisations need some link love just like every other site on the net. What better than a charity link meme.
This also helps me highlight a charity I have supported for all the 14 years I have been over here in Poland, that has actually grown to be the largest charity in the country.

Read more on Charity Link Meme…

Tags: charity, meme
]]> Charity is important and charity organisations need some link love just like every other site on the net. What better than a charity link meme.
This also helps me highlight a charity I have supported for all the 14 years I have been over here in Poland, that has actually grown to be the largest charity in the country.

The meme was started over at SEO Refugee by Skitzoo, and I have been tagged by Marc at My Credit Group, and Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim who notes that a link from his previously mothballed personal blog wouldn’t be very charitable.

The rules are simple, copy the list of charities and links (grab it from whomever tags you) and add your 5 favorite charities or non-profit organizations to the end (link to their sites with anchor text of the causes they champion). Of course finish things off by tagging 5 other webmasters/bloggers and then publishing the post or the webpage.

Here is a list of the ones that have been before

• American Red Cross – disaster relief
• Raleigh Rescue Mission – homeless raleigh
• SOS Children’s Villages – sponsor a child
• Samaritan’s Purse – emergency relief programs
• St. Jude Children’s Hospital – cancer research
• Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders – Humanitarian Relief
• American Red Cross – Emergency Preparedness
• AMREF – African Medical & Research Foundation – African Health Development
• DOROT – Programs for Elderly
• Feed the Children – Protect Children
• Service International – Disaster Relief
• Pujols Family Foundation – Children with Down Syndrome
• National Alliance to End Homelessness – Homelessness
• The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research – Parkinson’s Research
• Ronald McDonald Care Mobile Program – Child Healthcare
• Aids Research Alliance – Aids Research
• Wildlife Conservation Society – Wildlife Protection
• Cancer Research Institute – Cancer Research
• Second Harvest – End Hunger
• AARP Foundation – Helping Senior Citizens

I am only going to pick one charity organisation, but they cover a number of diverse topics and thus I am going to give them a few deep links. Whilst they are the largest and most popular Polish charity organisation, they only rank at the bottom of the 2nd page in Google for Polish charity.

• The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity – Polish Charity
• CPR For Schools Across Poland – CPR Training
• Program of Insulin Pumps in Diabetic Children Therapy – Insulin Pumps For Children
• Non-invasive Neonatal Breathing Support – Infant Flow
• Program of Universal Neonatal Hearing Screenings – Neonatal Hearing

In many ways each year they set up a separate charity fund, and it works in many ways much like the TV show for kids “Blue Peter” and their appeals, and more recent things like Live Aid and Comic Relief.
Specific causes are chosen each year, and all the money raised goes to those causes, so each year it is effectively like a separate charity.

I now have to tag people, and I am going to pick (on) some Europeans to get this branching out nicely.

Stefan Juhl
Gavin
Fraser
Keith
Shaun

I will make it easy for you guys to pass on the list

<ul>
<li>The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity - <a href="http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/fundation/">Polish Charity</a></li>
<li> CPR For Schools Across Poland - <a href="http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/schools/">CPR Training</a></li>
<li>Program of Insulin Pumps in Diabetic Children Therapy - <a href="http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/medic/index.php/32/2">Insulin Pumps For Children</a></li>
<li>Non-invasive Neonatal Breathing Support - <a href="http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/medic/index.php/34/2">Infant Flow</a></li>
Program of Universal Neonatal Hearing Screenings - <a href="http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/medic/index.php/31/2">Neonatal Hearing</a>
<li>American Red Cross - <a href="http://www.redcross.org/">disaster relief</a></li>
<li>Raleigh Rescue Mission - <a href="http://www.raleigh-rescue.org/index.shtml">homeless raleigh</a></li>
<li>SOS Children’s Villages - <a href="http://www.sos-usa.org">sponsor a child</a></li>
<li>Samaritan’s Purse - <a href="http://www.samaritanspurse.org">emergency relief programs</a></li>
<li>St. Jude Children’s Hospital - <a href="http://www.stjude.org/aboutus">cancer research</a></li>
<li>Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders - <a href="http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/">Humanitarian Relief</a></li>
<li>American Red Cross - <a href="http://www.redcross.org/">Emergency Preparedness</a></li>
<li>AMREF - African Medical &amp; Research Foundation - <a href="http://www.amref.org/">African Health Development</a></li>
<li>DOROT - <a href="http://www.dorotusa.org/">Programs for Elderly</a></li>
<li>Feed the Children - <a href="http://www.feedthechildren.org">Protect Children</a></li>
<li>Service International - <a href="http://www.serviceinternational.org/home/index.shtml" target="_blank">Disaster Relief</a> </li>
<li>Pujols Family Foundation - <a href="http://www.pujolsfamilyfoundation.org/foundation.htm" target="_blank">Children with Down Syndrome</a> </li>
<li>National Alliance to End Homelessness - <a href="http://www.endhomelessness.org/" target="_blank">Homelessness</a> </li>
<li>The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research - <a href="http://www.michaeljfox.org/" target="_blank">Parkinson’s Research</a> </li>
<li>Ronald McDonald Care Mobile Program - <a href="http://www.rmhc.org/rmhc/index/programs/ronald_mcdonald_care.html" target="_blank">Child Healthcare</a> </li>
<li>Aids Research Alliance - <a href="http://www.aidsresearch.org/">Aids Research</a> </li>
<li>Wildlife Conservation Society - <a href="http://www.wcs.org/">Wildlife Protection</a> </li>
<li>Cancer Research Institute - <a href="http://www.cancerresearch.org/">Cancer Research</a> </li>
<li>Second Harvest - <a href="http://www.secondharvest.org/">End Hunger</a> </li>
<li>AARP Foundation - <a href="http://www.aarp.org/about_aarp/aarp_foundation/about_foundation/">Helping Senior Citizens</a> </li>
</ul>

Tags: charity, meme
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