Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines

CLICKBAITA BLOGGER’S GUIDE TO WRITING UN-IGNORABLE HEADLINES

https://venngage.com/blog/7-reasons-why-clicking-this-title-will-prove-why-you-clicked-this-title/



“CLICKBAITINESS” WHAT DO YOU USE TO MEASURE THE

OF A TITLE?




It’s actually easier than you might think.




After analyzing top performing articles from 24 High-traffic sites…




There were about

7 COMMON FACTORSthat made up each clickbait title




Some of these titles had reached over

in less than 3 months

1,000,000 SHARES




The least amount of shares received was just over

10,000 in less than 3 months




Crazy, right?




1.

FACTORS

Was the title a list?





Something along the lines of:

18 Photos That Won’t Make Sense To Sisterless Families“

”



http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/18-pictures-only-people-with-sisters-will-recognize





Buzzfeed has a LOT of articles with listicle titles.




On average, list-based content gets the most social traction after infographics



https://venngage.com

https://venngage.com


2. Was there a mention of “YOU” or “I”?




In his book Contagious, Jonah Berger expresses the importance of using stories to engage people with your content.



http://www.business.com/content-marketing/the-6-factors-of-attention-grabbing-content/




Why do you think case studies are so popular?




Because if something can affect another person, it means there’s a chance it can affect

you too!




Titles that mention or hint at a personal story get clicks.




Was there mention of an animal?3.




Cute animals get people excited. Look:




Did the topic receive recent media attention?4.




Trending topics in the media gain a lot of attention.




So when you create content that coincides with a topic that was recently covered in the

news, you have a better chance at being noticed.




We did this for the release of Game of Thrones:




And then Distractify picked it up, and then George Takei shared it…




And then our site crashed because we got too much traffic.

That’s a pretty good problem to have.




Was there a pop-culture reference or food reference?5.




A great food reference can go a long way. Just look at this picture.

It’s a bacon-wrapped grilled cheese and it was my best friend’s Facebook cover photo for over a month.




Was there an unknown or new concept mentioned in the title?6.




Introducing a new idea or suggesting an element of mystery makes it very difficult to resist clicking on a title.




Which title are you more likely to click?




Let me guess, your choice was pretty much on par with everyone else’s, right?

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to know why the duck crossed the pond?




Was there an element of shock or excitement?7.



Instead of the title being


This duck just swam across this pond to get to the other side…



It might be more shocking if the title was


This duck just swam across this pond to save a man from a burning building!



So after many grueling hours of calculating the data (it only took this long because I suck at math), here is what I learned:





And you know what else?




So now what?




Everytime you come across a new article, whether it’s one on your own blog or one that someone shares with you, analyze it and track whether it contains any of the factors listed in this presentation.




Practicing applying these factors will only make you better at formulating your own

CLICKBAIT HEADLINES




And in no time your content will also get shared by George Takei.




But hopefully your website won’t crash because of it…



Marketing

Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines