Blogging is an amazing science. One must be able to accomplish many feats at the same time to grow readership. Two ways to accomplish readership goals are SEO and linkbait. Both have similarities and likewise, differences.

Definitions from the glossary:

Linkbait

Link baiting is a technique used to create links by creating content that appeals to social networks and/or bloggers.

Search engine optimization

SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a way to increase rankings within search engine results.

Similarities

Linkbait and SEO are quite similar in many aspects.

• Both are a form of internet marketing.
• Both have the main priorities of gaining links.
• Both are best accomplished when having contacts in your own niche.
• Both are for the outcome of traffic.

Differences

However, there are also many differences. Lets go over what they are:

	Linkbait	SEO
Titles:	Clickable titles	Optimized titles for SEs
Content:	Anything controversial or interesting.	Pages with 200+ words = best result.
Traffic type:	One time only.	Sustained.
Chance of accidental success?	Yes	No
Difficulty level (scale of 1-10):	8	4

In case there is any confusion, ‘chance of accidental’ means the chance which people can accidentally create it. Many times the best linkbait is from something sources you never dreamed of becoming linkbait. As for SEO, it is rarely, if ever, accidental.
As for the difficulty level, SEO is one of the easiest marketing techniques to learn and implement, at least at the basic level. Linkbait however, is one of the hardest.

Which to choose?

There is no need to choose. Both can be accomplished (and sometimes are with the same article). The real choose is when to post one over the other. A general rule is to keep linkbait to a minimum, otherwise visitors might tend to grow angry. However, there are sites out there which live on linkbait alone.