Why Use Clickbait
Back when I was in the corporate world there was an expression that carried a lot of weight:
“Nothing happens until someone sells something”.
The best organization and the best products aren’t going anywhere until you actually get an order and you can’t get an order until you get someones attention. The same applies to the internet. The best web design and the greatest content doesn’t mean anything unless you get those clicks…
The process of trying to improve traffic for your web site is referred to as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and you’re usually offered advice from a number of sources about how to take advantage of it. Things like optimizing titles, using descriptive paragraphs, alternate text and graphic descriptions, but mostly this doesn’t really get the job done. Maybe there was a time when this advice was useful but with web sites growing exponentially now and everyone usually following the same advice – well it’s really unlikely that the usual SEO will get you to stand out from billions of web sites. And that’s the job that needs to get done.
A word of caution is necessary though. While using the usual SEO methods will probably not go very far in getting your site moved up in searches, but not using SEO can result in you being seriously ignored. It would seem that using standard SEO methods today will not help much in getting your web site moved up in search results, but not using them will result in getting you moved down. So keep looking for and using key words, employing alternative text, adding image descriptions* and selecting heading copy carefully. You also need to do more.
The Target Audience For Clickbait
Who should the primary target for click bait be? Oddly enough, the short answer is search engines with people being a distant second. Experience will quickly demonstrate that the fastest way to gain clicks is to simply get the search engines attention. Once you have its attention it will usually work to move your web site up for many different search requests.
The best way to explain this is to think about your site if you take a break from posting. In most cases you would have had a base number of visits as you post regularly. Take a number of weeks off and what happens to your visits? Usually they drift down going faster over time. Some of that may be a result of not reaching out to subscribers or no longer auto-posting on social media, but way more than half of that drop is usually referrals from search engines. The data is easy to confirm by looking back at your referrals data.
It’s easy to see the process. Stop posting for a time and watch the traffic. We all have a number of postings that consistently draw traffic and usually they continue to draw traffic when you pause postings, but the overall traffic drops. Start up posting again and quickly you’ll see a jump, but you’ll probably also discover something odd. You’ll probably notice that the search engine response to a new post isn’t really related to that new post? Usually it’s your overall referrals from search engines that jump along with the new posting, but the traffic is not directly related to that specific new post.
So what does that indicate? It seems that the search engines are more attracted to sites when they post often without much interest in what they post. We probably all knew this but we never understood how important constant posting is. The truth is that posting a simple one line quote of the day, every day is far more attractive to the search engine than an in-depth, thousand word essay once every week or two and it’s a lot less trouble.
The Other Target Audience
That other audience is people and the motivation is a bit more complex. Today there is a lot of talk about AI and what we can do with it, but the reaction of search engines to posts will demonstrate that intelligence actually isn’t involved. Click bait for search engines isn’t much more sophisticated than that of getting your dogs attention by throwing a ball. People are a whole different issue and to get their attention you have to use language and ideas to hook them.
Human click bait is everywhere:
“You won’t believe what this celebrity looks like now!” – “10 shocking secrets your doctor doesn’t want you to know” – “This is the most amazing thing you’ll ever witness!”
Developing click bait for people requires an understanding of the emotional environment. In promoting a web post it is all in the title. The title will show up in search listings, in your subscribers emails and on social media auto posts. The secret is to use a title that really engages peoples curiosity. Even if it doesn’t fit the established character of your site it makes the difference between seeing it and clicking on it. Get creative and after the initial response you can go back and make the title fit your overall theme.
What is more likely to get a click? “10 things to see in Rome” or “10 sights you can’t miss in Rome!” – it isn’t much more complicated than giving it a little thought.
*While image descriptions are important in the case of Google there is a new process that now seems to drive much more traffic. Google Lens is now delivering a steady stream of inbound clicks. In Google Lens travel is a very important category and posting good photos seems to attract inbound clicks. Unfortunately for now I don’t seem to have a way to tell what the inbound clicks actually see – it might just be that image in my media library. Any thoughts?
The Intentional Travelers 