For the ones that don’t know, linkbait is the art of writing an article (or something) that would naturally attract backlinks to it, what it means is that people would like it so much that they would link to it. Every niche has got topics that can be used as linkbait, you just have to use your head.

A nice way to learn how to write great linkbaits is by looking at other people articles and analyzing them to see what they exactly did and didn’t to get where they got. This is exactly what I am goin to do here:
Link Bait #1

Title: Ten Apartment Pets That Can Be Better Than Cats and Dogs
In my opinion this title could be improved with the use of numbers (10 instead of ten), what is really good about it is that it really makes you want to click it to see what apartment pets can be better than cats and dogs, that is the effect we have to achieve on an article’s title.
Structure: It starts with a general introduction and then starts enumerating the animals which are followed by a picture and brief explanation. The only thing I dislike about the article is that after number 6 it puts the 4 animals as “the others”, this doesn’t have a positive impact on people.
Ads: Yes
Picture: Yes
Social Media Buttons: No
Backlinks: 292
Votes at Digg: 716
Points at Reddit: Not submitted
Votes at Propeller: 1

Link Bait #2

Title: 10 Reasons Gift Certificates Make Horrible Gifts
You can see that this title uses numbers, what makes it more catchy, it has also got all the words capitalized for more emphasis (even though some people hate this) and is giving reasons to people.
Structure: You can see that the post follows a structure, first it gives a brief explanation of what the post will be about, then gives the reasons which are enumerated and indented followed by each reason explanation. It also finishes with a small conclusion.
Ads: Yes
Picture: Yes
Social Media Buttons: Yes
Backlinks: 376
Votes at Digg: 833
Points at Reddit: 83
Votes at Propeller: 17

Link Bait #3

Title: Facebook Launches Community-Driven Project to Add Foreign Language Support
The title is not catchy at all, but the bait here is the news, so the best they could do was write all the information they could on the title.
Structure: The article doesn’t follow any special structure as it is a news article and not informative.
Ads: Yes
Picture: Yes
Social Media Buttons: Yes
Backlinks: 562
Votes at Digg: 312
Points at Reddit: Not submitted
Votes at Propeller: Not submitted

Link Bait #4

Title: Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2007
It uses numbers and the word top, which shows that you will just see the best of the best there, these two together make a great effect and make people want to click the link to see more about it. Title is also capitalized.
Structure: First it gives a brief explanation of what the post will be about, then tells the sites which are enumerated and indented followed by an explanation of it and its alexa rank.
Ads: Yes
Picture: No
Social Media Buttons: Yes
Backlinks: 2900
Votes at Digg: 2047
Points at Reddit: 132
Votes at Propeller: 3

Link Bait #5

Title: Creating Web 2.0 Effects With Photoshop
It is really descriptive, what will make people understand what they will see if they click the link, but won’t call them to click if they are not interested in that. Title is capitalized and includes numbers.
Structure: Brief general explanation followed by indented subtitles with content and pictures.
Ads: Yes
Picture: Yes
Social Media Buttons: Yes
Backlinks: 2030
Votes at Digg: 1205
Points at Reddit: Not submitted
Votes at Propeller: Not submitted

Conclusion

We can see tat they all capitalized the first word of the title, most of them ad social media buttons to make it easier for the user to social bookmark the page.They all got to Digg frontpage, what gave them most exposure and helped them promoting the linkbait.

Note: Wrote this in a keyboard without h g and space bar so sorry for not writing more on each. I promess I will buy a new keyboard.