Let’s say you pick up a book about search engine optimization and read it from cover to cover. You probably read about a lot techniques that don’t work, and those that do work are not easy to implement. One of these techniques that you are surely going to read about in any book is the concept of creating linkbaits to get incremental links to your website. While linkbaiting is very pleasing to the ear and we all want to read more about, implementing a successful linkbaiting campaign can be very difficult.

The gurus tell you that you should focus on How-tos or reports with pretty graphs on them, but I can tell you from the experience that nothing sell like contorversy. But if you add my secret ingredient, outside-the-box, to controversy, you can get a whole lot of links and attention on the web. Now here is where I go and take credit for coming up with this method, but the truth is I found out how powerful it is when I read a story about a wild solution to stop illegal immigration in the U.S.

It’s a very simple concept. If you talk about controversial things, you either get to offend a few people, or rose the interest of those who are bored with their daily dose of news. Add the wild idea to the mix, and you are going to get people who are in the middle and want to show they are smarter than you or they see flaws in your approach. If you follow search engine optimization books, you end up taking approaches that have been done before, and that doesn’t set you apart in your market, now does it? Controversy sells! Whether we like it or not.