Linkbaiting, creating good content...whatever you want to call it. The concept is here to stay and it's fast becoming an essential tool in any online marketers offerings. With that in mind, Nick Wilson has put together a pretty in-depth "Guide to Linkbaiting" over at Search Engine Land. From what it is to what the risks are to how to price it, the guide serves up quite a bit of information on the topic. (And just so that the concept isn't lost on anyone, the article itself is a good example of link bait.)

I'd encourage small business owners to focus on his examples and points about the level of time equating with the level of success of a link baiting campaign. You'll note that Wilson is a big fan of widgets and has dubbed widgets the "holy grail of linkbaiting in 2007."

While I don't doubt that widgets will enjoy a huge surge in popularity this year and will likely score plenty of links for the folks that figure out how to use them well, it's important to remember that in the "real" world (that's what I call the small business world...not the search marketing blog world) the most powerful linkbait is the type that results in new customers and buyers are your site.

In reality, it's likely that widgets as a source of link bait are going to pan out similar to how social bookmarking sites have panned out. Yes, they'll score you lots of links and they may even score you lots of traffic. However, they may not score you any conversions.

My friend Matt Bailey over at SiteLogic Marketing is working on a blog post of his own with some of his findings from examining the conversion rates of social media traffic. I was a little bit surprised to find that the average time on site from a social media link was just 10 seconds. The average number of page views per visit was a little over one. So you've got to ask yourself, apart from the chance that it's raising awareness of your brilliance (which means far more in the search industry than in the dry cleaning, house painting or book selling business) what are these links really doing for your site?

So take the great advice that Nick has to offer about link baiting and temper it with the reality of your own business. Find a way to gain traffic that will work for you. Use link baiting to drive people to a selling point, or at least to some type of call to action. Stop worrying about building links for the sake of links and start figuring out how to linkbait your way into more customers.