BJ Wright's Public Library

Concepts, Tactics and Styles:




There are certain concepts that tend to work particularly well for attracting attention and links. As we've said, you can plug different content into these style-templates in hundreds of different ways. Some of the most effective and popular concepts for presenting content include:



• Web Tools: handy applications that perform, streamline or aggregate normally tedious tasks.
• Widgets: embeddable code or images people can put on their page to calculate or present data (often output from a tool). Browser plugins fall somewhere between tools and widgets.
• Embedded Content: videos, podcasts, images…any cool, interesting or informative multimedia content on your page can be very popular.
• Beginner's Guide to…: This can be serious or tongue-in-cheek, but it's a popular and easily digested format.
• How to…: Much like a Beginner's Guide.
• Top 10 Ways to…: Actually, lists of any length or manifestation are not only easy to build, but universally popular.
• Surveys: They're interactive, they're anonymous and they give instant feedback for people to comment on. (We suggest Wufoo.com for easy-to-make forms)
• Polls: Same as surveys. (We suggest Polldaddy.com for free polls)
• Contests: Everyone loves to win things and/or be recognized as the best. Give away something (anything) or offer an ego-boost to one or more lucky winners and you'll get attention yourself.
• Multiple Expert Opinions: Gather a panel of experts and get them to talk about something. If they offer support of conventional wisdom, you've provided conclusive proof! If they fly in the face of conventional wisdom, you've made the sky fall! If they disagree, the sky might be falling!
• Interviews: Much in the vein of expert opinions, interviews can be even better if you include them as a video or podcast. Keep in mind that the more well-recognized or famous the participant, the more links you're likely to receive.
• Encyclopedia-style Articles: Can't find any experts? Nobody has a well-defined opinion? Create your own! Become an authoritative source to explain an obscure or confusing topic. Then make a page for it on Wikipedia and link back to yourself.
• Awards or Recognition: Create a series of awards or superlatives for your field and hand them out. This works best once you have an audience, but everyone will want to receive it and those who win will link back to you to acknowledge the kudos you've given them.

Brainstorming Desirable Content:

All linkworthy content doesn't have to begin as a eureka! moment gleaned from a stray blog comment. You should regularly sit down and brainstorm content ideas.

Don't rule anything out in these sessions. Write down every bizarre little whim that comes to mind. While it may seem implausible at first, often you can repurpose or modify the idea into something really great. Let your creative juices flow freely.

Once you've squeezed every last drop of creative juice from your brain it's time to focus, channel and filter everything. Are there ideas that are time-sensitive? What about concepts that can wait for an appropriate bit of news? Which type of content is each idea best suited to: Blog posts, viral marketing, featured articles, tools, press releases? Are you sure? Is there a better way to execute the idea? Would the concept work better for other content you want to cover?

You should look at every idea for both its concept/style (e.g. top ten list, how-to guide, article, tool, etc.) as well as its content/subject matter (e.g. pirates, ninjas, computer viruses, pirate viruses, ninja computers, etc.). These are building blocks, feel free to mix and match.