Clickbaiting has become a popular internet marketing strategy, particularly in the news and entertainment sectors. The goal with this process is to create a title enticing enough for someone to click on. If the site generates its revenue from ads alone, that simple click is all the site owners need to make money. It doesn’t matter how long people stick around to read the content, or if the content is even relevant at all.
Of course, that’s not how real SEO strategies work. Most businesses need readers to stay on the page in order to boost their search engine ranking and convert leads to sales. Nevertheless, there are some clickbait techniques that could be incorporated into your Michigan SEO campaign as long as you use an ethical approach.
Creating Titles That Intrigue Readers
If you’re working on service pages, location pages, and other cornerstones for your website, you may not have much flexibility with your titles. With blog posts though, you can be as creative as you want to be. While it is important to get your target keyword in your blog post title, it’s just as important to create a title that gets people excited about the content. The more excited they are, the more likely they are to visit your site and stay there.
This is the biggest takeaway from the clickbaiting process. Consider these two titles: “Tourist Attractions To See In Michigan” and “5 Must-See Tourist Attractions In Michigan.” Both use the target keywords “tourist attractions” and both incorporate Michigan as a geomodifier, but one sounds much more enticing than the other. The second title will probably bring in far more readers than the first one, which will ultimately mean more sales for the company.
Be Descriptive Without Over-Exaggerating
There is a fine line between creating buzz about a subject and fabricating information entirely. You don’t want to create titles that stretch the truth. This will make people question your content and your business authority as a whole, which will not help your reputation. It may even land you in the middle of a social media debate, trying to defend something you said that got taken out of context. It is better to be honest about your content than to lie for clicks. You can spice up the title without completely distorting the core message of the piece.
Back The Bait With Valuable Content
The reason that clickbaiting gets a bad name is because it’s usually associated with useless content that doesn’t support the title, much like a bait and switch sales pitch. This is a road you do not want to go down. Instead, create user-friendly content that is just as enticing as the title. Create a list of truly amazing tourist attractions in Michigan that people cannot see anywhere else, as opposed to a list of museums anyone could find with a quick Google search.
We can’t emphasize this enough: Google rewards good content. If you take the time to relay high-quality information through a well-written webpage or blog post, you will see an increase in your traffic over time.
