If you have website or a blog, you need to create contents that people find useful. If the content is valuable, other sites will link to your content and you will increase the number of back links to your site. These back links will not only generate direct traffic from those sites, it will also help increase your search engine ranking and organic traffic.

So, what types of contents are baits for other sites to link to your sites? This article discusses seven types of contents that are proven to be magnets for back links. Try out a few of these techniques to increase your links and traffic.

1. Crete "How To" Guides. This type of guides is popular and also very useful to the readers Write down a few ideas related your niche and use authoritative websites to do your research.

Make it a step-by-step, preferably numbered like 1, 2, etc., guide. It should be as simple as a recipe but has enough details for some one to follow the steps to accomplish something.

2. Write controversial opinion on breaking news. Don't repeat the news. Big news organizations have hundreds of paid stuff for news reporting. You need to analyze the news and offer your own opinions. However, if the opinion is off main stream, it has better chance of attracting others attentions.

3. Videos are becoming ever popular on the web. Create a video related to your niche but make it funny. People love funny videos. You can use kids and pets to create funny video shots and than try to tie those shots to your niche. Upload to a few popular video sites like YouTube and Metacafe. Don't forget to put your website link in the video and embed the video in your website.

4. Keep a small inexpensive digital camera in you car all the time. When you come across funny things like, billboard and road signs, license plates, etc., take pictures and post it on your site and popular picture sharing sites like flickr, smugmug, etc.

5. Create a web tool related to your niche. Web tools like mortgage calculator, carbon foot print calculator, etc. are popular and useful. Ask your site visitors what type of tools they want to see on your site.

Once you have the details of what the tool should do, go to elance, rent-a-coder, or online programmers and webmasters forums to solicit bids for developing the tool. You don't have to know any software programming, but you have to know exactly what the tools should do.

6. Solicit ideas for contests from forums you visit regularly and start a contest on your site. Announce it in forums related to your niche. Give away free stuff at least worth $50 to the winner and token prizes to all finalists.

Consider it as your advertisement spending. Run the contest for a month or so for the word to spread around. Encourage your visitors to spread the word.

7. Interview well-known personality in your niche and post the interview on your site. Write to bloggers in your niche about the interview. If the interviewee has some insightful thoughts, other bloggers will write about it and link to the original interview published in your site.

Bloggers use the seven content types described above for viral marketing and link baiting to increase traffic to their sites. If you are running a web site, not a blog, you can still employ these techniques to claim you share of the web traffic in your niche.