Baiting the Links - an SEO Experiment

Today I’m treating you to something on the lighter side. But first, a little background.

In the middle of the summer of 2012, I answered a Craigslist ad that sought writers to compose SEO content. SEO (search engine optimization) refers to the array of strategies and tricks that websites use to rank high in Google searches when potential clients are looking for their goods, services, or information.

My new employer, Audience Bloom, was a brand-new startup based in Seattle. I went straight to work composing 400-500 word articles about reunion services, door companies in Phoenix, real estate agents and retirement centers in Seattle, and so on.

Since the only goal of his clients was to attract more traffic to their websites, the founder of Audience Bloom, Jayson DeMers, had the idea to try posting whimsical, entertaining pieces about nonexistent products that would pique readers’ interest and make them click through to the clients’ real websites. He called these fanciful pieces “link bait.”


A little puzzled about the point of this, I went to work. The general topic areas were assigned, based on the line of business our clients were in, but what I chose to say -- the products I discussed -- were entirely my creation. As you’ll see below, I was soon enjoying myself tremendously.

DOORS IN PHOENIX: A SITE-SPECIFIC INNOVATION

Seller d’Or, the new Phoenix entry manufacturer and retail chain, has announced a solution to a perennial problem for residents of Maricopa County. On those warm summer (and sometimes even winter!) nights, Phoenix residents have long loved to leave their doors open to the desert breezes -- but that inevitably brought insects. How to let your house “breathe” without inhaling flies, mosquitoes, and even worse pests?

“Over the years, Phoenix residents have gotten used to sleeping through the night with the A/C blasting,” says Arizona State climatologist Amy Harper, “but with the metro population climbing toward 5 million in the coming decade, that’s a lot of energy. Some folks have sought a more ‘green’ solution.”

With its ultra-new, high-tech Venus FlyDoor technology (patent pending), Seller d’Or allows homeowners to leave their front and rear entries wide open throughout the night, with no fear of collecting wee buzzing or humming critters. “Venus” features a door-wide bug-zapping technology that stops insects cold at any entrance to your home. Once the system is turned on, every fly, wasp, mosquito, or hornet that tries to enter the house is instantly fried with 500 volts of electrical power.

“Of course, we knew that customers were not going to be eager for that old-fashioned ‘zzzt!’ sound disturbing them through the night,” says John Skelton, CEO of Seller d’Or. “We had to include an acceptable alternative as part of the package.”

The most innovative aspect of the Venus FlyDoor is the sonic adjuster, Seller d’Or audio consultant Hank Turner explains. “We’ve provided a dial that allows the customer to sonically alter each bug termination so that the miniature execution converts to any of a number of soothing options: a light gust of wind through maple tree branches, the gurgle of water in a mountain stream, the crunch of breakfast cereal between your molars, the whisper of spider legs in tall grass -- whatever suits you best.”

A night-long barrage of insects can collect quite a pile of black and brown carcasses on your doorstep, so Seller d’Or has partnered with Hoover to offer a package deal that includes a small robot sweeper. The Schlepper makes a pass across the threshold at a preset time (say, 7 a.m.). It picks up any mess and deposits it in the garden where it will become compost for your pansies, cacti, and zucchini.

“Of course, an open door can look like an invitation to other intruders,” developer Mike Gristman comments. But the Venus FlyDoor ratchets up its response to meet the size of each challenge, he adds. “Raccoons, possum, or curious two-legged intruders will get the shock of their life if they step into the field created by the Venus FlyDoor,” he states. At least, it will discourage entry. If they persist, the technology will induce temporary paralysis, after which the nosy visitor will either exit the area at top speed, or be lying on the porch in the morning, ready for the homeowner to deal with as he or she sees fit.

GIVING SENIOR HOME CARE A LIVELY BOOST

Senior home care, the growing industry of non-medical services for aging Americans, is seeing a growing demand for live entertainment as part of its palette of offerings. In response to that demand, a new company called Home Klowns announced that it is open for business in several major U.S. cities.

“We’re partnering with several long-established senior home care organizations,” CEO Bradley Dipple explains. “I tell them to think of us as a mood consultant.” The provider contracts for a Home Klown performer to visit its clients, and decides whether to foot the bill itself or pass along the fee to the customer.

Dipple said he and his partners realized that quality of life in a person’s later years can involve not only in-home care, respite care, and cleaning and upkeep of the client’s living space, but mood-enhancing services, such as comedy, movement, and color. “If you provide laughter and joy to elder shut-ins, you boost their quality of life,” he says.

While clowns, magicians, dancers, and poets may not be eligible for Medicare reimbursement – “yet,” Dipple asserts optimistically – senior home care providers have been somewhat receptive to the idea of including Home Klowns as an extra among their array of services, especially after seeing the enthusiastic response of their clients.

“We agree that live entertainment, right in your home, can provide an extra zing for seniors that high-def cable, movies on DVD, or books on tape don’t necessarily achieve,” says Morton Blomkin, president of Residential Valkyries, a home care company that primarily serves the Midwest. “As the Baby Boom generation continues to age, Home Klowns could be a model for all-round senior home care services in the future.”

Once they know what’s possible, some senior clients who have the wherewithal to pay for extra entertainment services begin to request all kinds of live entertainers to come to their residence, according to Amy Capleton, director of programming at Home Klowns.

“We’ve had customers request everything from Irish step dancing to monologues from Shakespeare in their living room,” she recalls. Some even enjoy a gardening demonstration or scrapbooking workshop, because those were their favorite activities before arthritis in their fingers or general mobility posed too much of a challenge to continue.

Capleton added that a few elder male shut-ins have even asked whether the company could send over an exotic dancer. “We’re waiting on a decision from corporate headquarters as to whether this would be an appropriate service.”

The biggest challenge, according to Dipple, is reaching rural shut-ins who have so little access to senior home care services in general. In any case, he says, Home Klowns fully expects to have operational branches in more than a dozen U.S. cities by the end of the year.

PORTABLE KITCHEN ISLAND ENJOYS PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK

A Long Island housewife recently discovered that her portable kitchen island has become the perfect babysitter for her children.

“I swear, at first I thought I was simply losing my mind and my memory,” Juanita Krebs, a resident of Glen Head, told reporters. “I kept finding my dark-wood Crosley in the strangest places: in the shower, under the rhododendrons, tucked behind the wood stove in the living room, or in Marty’s doghouse—she’s our English sheepdog.”

The cabinet is vintage mahogany with a stainless steel top. “We’ve had it for five years—we got it at the Costco in Holbrook,” Mrs. Krebs said. “It’s been great.” Her husband Harold commutes into Manhattan where he works for Metropolitan Life as an insurance adjuster, specializing in industrial liability.

It turned out the traditional-style culinary cabinet was entertaining Tiffany, 9, and Jacob, 6, by playing hide-and-seek with them.

“It’s great fun,” Jacob said. “It never comes looking for us, but it seems to enjoy finding weird places for us to find it at.” Tiffany agrees: “Yeah, the funniest place we ever found it was in the trunk of Daddy’s Miata.”

Tiffany and Jacob have taken to calling their kitchen island friend “Woodie,” because of the solid hardwood and veneer construction with a natural dark finish. Jacob says he likes to hang his G.I. Joe dolls from the matching towel bars on the ends. “Woodie” likes to race the kids down the hall and then lock its casters so that they overshoot it, they said.

Mort Dunleavy, a professor of retail appliance and furniture studies at Adelphi University, says it is not unusual for furniture to participate in childrearing, although it’s more common among living room and dining area fixtures. “Easy chairs especially tend to fall into that avuncular role,” Dunleavy reports. “Apart from toasters, you don’t often see kitchen appliances, especially large ones, take an interest in children.”

In fact, experts say, it’s statistically more likely that kitchen furniture will turn on pre-teens rather than find common ground with them. “Drawers have been known to snap shut on curious little fingers, and stovetop warning lights will purposely shut down in order to inflict burns on children,” Dr. Phyllis Sheafley, a specialist in inanimate psychology states in her book, When Divans Cry.

Harold Krebs said his wife seems much calmer when he comes home these days, because she doesn’t have to worry about where the kids are throughout the day, on top of her volunteer activities and bridge club. “The portable kitchen island has just made us a happier, healthier family,” he said. “We’re thinking of taking it with us on our vacation to Cabo.”

 *   *   *   *   *

You can see I had a lot of fun with names of people and companies. I think I was reading the first one about the bug-zapping doors to my wife Carole when she said, “You’d better be careful; people are really going to want to know where to get these things!”

Jayson felt the third one about kitchen islands maybe went a little too far. But the articles duly went live on a website I presume was owned by Audience Bloom, Before It’s News. Today you can still find my pieces about Venus FlyDoors, Home Klowns, and the playful portable kitchen island on beforeitsnews.com.

Each one contains a single link to a legitimate business that (I hope) received more traffic from curious readers as a result, even though they couldn’t actually supply the interesting services I described. (I hope Google doesn’t ding me for “plagiarizing” material that was already published elsewhere on the web.)

Our little experiment in “link baiting” ended after only a couple months, but I remain kind of proud of my creativity in them. I still work for Audience Bloom, but I don’t write for the company anymore. I’m now the company’s head editor and proofreader: nearly everything written by their stable of roughly two dozen free-lance writers goes through me before it gets uploaded so the company’s product reads more cleanly and intelligently than your average Web content.

Clients and client orders have been growing, so I assume Audience Bloom is doing well. Also, Jayson has become a listed expert and author of multiple articles on SEO and social media marketing topics at such locations as Forbes online, HuffingtonPost, and Entrepreneur.com.

But I’m kinda sorry we don’t do link bait anymore.