SEO headlines are very popular to attract search engine.
In the long run for attracting search engine, many websites compromise the quality. But Google always tries to maintain the quality of their search result and provides a better user experience. So, they only value quality contents.
If you want to get success, you must concentrate on both pleasing search engine as well as users at the same time.
Optimization only lets your content to appear on the search result. But if it is not of good quality, users will bounce back from your website and this affects your site reputation and ranking.
That’s where clickbait can help you to achieve your goal.
Clickbait is a special title that is attractive to be clickable. If users find it attractive, they will click on these links and go to that page. It is also helpful for SEO of your contents.
Creating a compelling headline is not an easy task. You need to know how to get your readers attention by playing with words. Creating curiosity through words is the main thing you have to do, to attract the user’s attention.
What is Clickbait?
Clickbait is a content that is written to attract as many clicks as possible from users.
Make any type of content like blogs, news, infographics, interviews by adding eye-catchy elements to it.
Now webmasters also follow this technique by implementing some interesting, or funny elements to your content to make it clickable. This can automatically increase traffic, ranking, and even sale.
Here are some common facts about clickbait.
Clickbait Facts You Must be Aware Of:
1. Clickbait exaggerates:
Clickbait is exaggerating and don’t have any connection with the original content.
When you want to attract user’s attention, webmasters create titles that can create curiosity in users to click on it.
If users don’t find anything interesting in the content, they won’t check the content. This will increase the bounce rate of your website which can affect your website ranking
2. Clickbait is sensational with no value:
This is another misconception about click bait. There are 2 ways you can attract your readers.
- One with sensational titles that can make users click on your page with good quality content
- Another one with an attractive title without quality content.
So, you are the one who decides what to offer to your audience. A valued content that can increase your sale or just increase the number of clicks without the sale.
3. Clickbait is bad for SEO:
SEO and clickbait are different. Clickbait is to make users click and SEO helps to attract search engine.
If you can combine both SEO and clickbait, this can increase your website performance and make it a huge success.
Other than the attractive title, you can also make the content informational to give users something useful. Google also want to enhance the quality of the result by implementing more factors to filter out websites.
These are some common misconception about clickbait. But as the time changes, competition increases and you must keep up to those other sites and have to implement.
Here are some important points to consider, while you consider applying clickbait on your content. You can combine SEO and clickbait and make it love everyone.
Tips for Writing Clickbait Headlines Which Actually Work:
1. Keyword-based title:
Keywords in the title are very important to Google. This can help your content to appear on the top search result. This condition is also applicable to clickbait.
You can make a content clickable by including keyword-based titles. If users find the exact title or content what they are looking for, they will click on it.
Use tools to find out keywords related to your topic or niche and include them in your title.
If you are writing about SEO marketing, create some catchy titles like “6 basic components of a strong SEO strategy”, “important SEO marketing strategies of 2018” etc.
You can also include stopping words in between your specific keywords.
For example, if you are writing about best New York restaurants the clickbait could be like best restaurants in New York city, Top 10 New York restaurants you must try, cool spots and hottest places to eat out in New York, etc.
These are not exactly similar to specific keyword but when someone searches about this topic you can see all the results related to New York restaurants. You can also add stopping words like in, by, etc to make it clearer.
2. Add some interesting words with your title:
There are titles which contain words that can create curiosity or interest in users.
Shocking, unbelievable or amazing are some examples of those words. When you search for places to see near a city, you can see thousands of results. But the top results may contain some words like the breathtaking view, must see, attractive, etc.
For example, there are titles like ‘places you must visit in Delhi’, ‘places you should not miss in Delhi’, etc. these titles contain specific attractive words like a must see or should not miss.
These can attract readers attention and create a curiosity in them. They will click on it to know more about the place.
3. Add number with your titles:
Numbers are very powerful to include in your title. This can make your title more specific than being general.
When you write about top beauty products, you can give the title like top 5 beauty products you should try or something like that. This can be more genuine to users than more general titles.
It could be numbers, percentage or money. There are blogs with titles to make the first 1000 followers. This can help users to get a specific idea about creating the first few followers to your website or blog easily.
Don’t hide anything from them. Share important details that they want to know and make them attracted to your content.
4. Make controversy a tool:
Controversy will always create curiosity in users.
Newspapers are using this as a tool to increase their conversion rate. They twist the statement of some important personalities and put it on their pages. Users who are interested in those titles will click on it and see what the content is.
There are some controversial statements in the blogging field like
- Is SEO dead?
- No need to follow SEO practices anymore etc.
All of them are like making more followers through negative publicity. This became more prevalent nowadays as webmasters want to get more clicks and increase their ranking. They adopt all possible methods to be versatile from other similar sites.
5. Include simple tricks:
Users love to know some tricks about a topic. You can use this as a chance to increase the popularity or clickability of your content. These types of content will also favor with your SEO efforts.
For example, titles like 5 simple tricks to make money online, 10 crazy ways to attract a girl are some catchy headline types.
Including the number of tricks or tips are very useful and will help to increase your site traffic. From titles like
- 7 strategies to improve website traffic
- 7 proven strategies to increase blog traffic by 206%
Now from the above titles which one looks more alluring?
Most of the users will go for the 2nd title than the 1st one. This is more specific and gives users more focused contents about a topic.
Adding a compelling adjective like proven strategy will also increase its attraction. Also, adding a number of works with this strategy.
6. Take reference from advertisements:
When marketers want to sell a product, they will include an attractive ad to make them believe in their product.
Also, check famous blogs and know how they use clickbait to attract users. Take them as a reference and use it on your blog title.
Nowadays most blogs are taking those reference to create attractive titles for their content.
7. Change short titles to attractive:
If you want to try with short titles, you can make it interesting by adding some additional interesting element in the end.
If you are listing some important points about a topic, then specify a point that is very important in the given list.
Many SEO experts use this as a special way to attract users by stressing that point as an important one.
For example, if you are ring about 10 steps to boost traffic, you can add an additional point like don’t miss point no#7. So, the title could be like this
“10 effective ways to boost your traffic (Don’t miss point No#7)”
You can also use statement link, try point number#7 or #7 can’t lose, #7 is important and effective, etc.
Will make you are the most popular phrase used in clickbait according to a survey. After that the phrase that’s why comes. So, increasing viewership can be achieved by analyzing top clickbait phrases and you must also know how to use them on your title.
Another method you can try is to use this is why context with your title. You can add this in the starting or in the end part of your title.
Both are effective but, the end part is more effective according to SEO experts. Here are two titles for you, to check the difference between using That’s why in a sentence
- That’s why you can’t increase your website traffic
- You can’t increase your website traffic (that’s why)
The 2nd title is more compelling than the first one. It gives a solution to bloggers who are struggling to get more viewership.
Involve an expert name:
There are experts in each area and you can use their name in your title to make it more attractive. This is a very good strategy to attract more audience towards your content.
People want to hear from experts and you can use their name for branding your content.
For example, when you want to post an article about marketing, you can take some important statement of that expert on marketing and make it as your content title.
Other than statements, you can also include quotes from their blog or interview as your title. This can increase the standard of your content and make it popular.
Use more than one title:
If you are using WordPress as your blog publishing platform, it will allow you to include two titles for the same topic.
One is the main title which is SEO optimized and the other one is towards clickbait.
Title tag and HI tag are the two different types of titles. One is to show on search bar when someone clicks on it and the other one appears on the top of the content.
So, we can say that title tag is for search engine and clickbait is for users. This is good for both the search engine and users equally and won’t cause any issue to your site traffic.
By following the above points well, you can create an effective clickbait successfully. Try these strategies and see how they work in increasing your website traffic effectively.
Important points to be noted while creating Clickbait headlines:
- Be professional and relevant to your website content. In order to just get more clicks, don’t deviate from the topic you are working on
- Titles should be honest and informative. This can make more followers if you can give them something important.
- Inspire them to learn more by adding some trigger words like what, why, how, etc
Conclusion:
Are you ready to implement clickbait in your content?
It is definitely not a bad thing to do. To get noticed among thousands of sites in the same niche, you must apply something special.
Clickbait is one option you can do, to attract more user attention and increase your site rank.
After any new change analyzes well, see whether the new change affected positively or negatively. This can give you more idea about changes to be made when you create new content.
Balance the title by making it optimized for SEO and users at the same time and get succeed.