Clickbait is considered an unfair practice!
Clickbait: sensational headlines used as bait by websites, but especially Social Networks, to induce the reader to click on a hyperlink.
Clickbait is considered a content marketing strategy to increase the number of views of a web page.
It usually presents very attractive headlines to intrigue and induce the user to read content that later turns out to be uninteresting and, above all, untrue and irrelevant to the page.
It is, in fact, considered a dishonest strategy, and can sometimes hide a scam or malware.
Having become very popular with the advent of social networks, such as Facebook, it is entertainment and news sites that are using this unorthodox tactic, with the aim of generating more traffic and earning money from online advertising.
Abusing link bait will bring no good except the loss of trust from readers.
Many consider it a marketing strategy in its own right, even if we are talking about really cheap marketing, but still marketing.
Clickbait: examples
The practice of clickbaiting uses headlines that omit data and information, such as, “you will never believe your eyes” or “what you are about to read will shock you.”
These are headlines to deceive and not to inform the reader.
Link bait mostly plays on emotions, such as sadness, anger, and surprise of users.
Some of the trap headlines we often see around the Web are constructed with half-truths, often using authoritative sources, here are some examples:
- Here is the video that is moving the entire Web
- This woman managed to lose 15 kg in 5 days, you won’t believe it click here
- How to earn millions in seconds
- Click here to see what this man risked as he was…
- Slimming down in an armchair can be done, science says so
Clickbait: it can hurt your SEO ranking
As we saw earlier, the main goal of Clickbait is to increase visits to a website.
Generally, those who use this technique monetize traffic. That is, they place several search ads (banners, videos etc) on their site.
If your website is aimed at presenting your services, or selling your products, we strongly advise against implementing this technique.
Clickbait in the short term could probably generate an increase in traffic. However, in the medium and long term, your website would be penalized by search engines.
If a user does not find what he or she expects, he or she will immediately abandon the page without navigating to the target site. This behavior is detected by Google which, may decide to downgrade your site’s SEO ranking on the SERP (search results).
Basically you lose traffic, visibility, users and sales.
If you have built a site in WordPress and don’t know how to boost its visibility on search engines, request your SEO Consulting custom.
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