Executives want their companies to be linked with success in consumers’ minds, and using relevant, intriguing content as bait to get others to link to your website can be a good method of raising brand awareness and generating those all important inbound links.

In a report for eConsultancy, SEO expert Gary Preston offers some tips on how marketers can get creative with their link building programs this season. To start, he recommends posting video content. Video, he says, captures consumers’ interests and, when done well, provides an interactive view of products and services. Interactive media is invaluable link bait.

Preston says another strategy for building links is to create a "badge" – or graphic link – that outsiders can be encouraged or incentivized to place on their sites.

To get third parties on board, Preston advises marketers to offer promotional items or discounted services to partners in exchange for a link from a corporate badge. This means the badge can serve as both a link and a sound word-of-mouth (or word-of-web) referral.

Interactive videos and badge schemes may be two top current trends for linking, but Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link told Search Engine Land that businesses must remember to continuously look for interesting content as link bait. In addition to building links, regularly updated content will appeal to prospective clients.

With that in mind, Mastaler will be speaking at the upcoming SMX Advanced Seattle conference about how marketers can stay on top of the latest linking trends.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.