Most people are usually aware of what clickbait refers to, but if you are one of the few who still find the term confusing, then this is the perfect article for you.
Clickbait is the type of content purposefully created to mislead people to get more views on a website. More often than not, publishers drive traffic to their websites through clickbait.
Why? Well, this allows them to warm more advertising clicks and money. In all honesty, the type of language used in clickbait is less informational but more emotional, such as “You won’t believe this”.
As a viewer, you would be curious as to what is so unbelievable, that you will end up clicking the link or image. That said, what comes after the click is rarely verifiable or filled with any helpful information.
For instance, if you are searching for rural internet, and you see a clickbait that says “you can now get fiber internet in your area” you might end up clicking it, but it might not lead you to any ISP.
Let’s find out if clickbait is actually bad and how you can avoid it.
Is Clickbait Really Bad?
Google knows everything about your website’s content better than anyone else. This is because of its consistent updates. If your web page’s URL, title, and headings are not relevant to its content, there is a good chance of Google penalizing you.
It’s fair to say that all of us want to develop content that increases visitors to our websites. There are several content marketing tips and tricks that can help you with this but bear in mind that not all of them are SEO-friendly.
If that happens, your SERPs will be affected. Here’s what else clickbait can affect:
- Bounce Rate: When an individual clicks their way through to your web page and does not find anything relevant, they will bounce away from your website, which will raise its bounce rate.
- Backlinks: Gaining links from less reputable websites can reduce the score of your Page Authority and your page ranking.
- Digital PR: If your site is infamous for outrageous claims and untrue headlines just to increase its traffic, your brand’s reputation will take a toll in the long run.
Can Your Website Only Rank via Titles and Headlines?
Well, the answer here would be no. Although some clickbait titles might drive a good amount of traffic to your website, Google keeps an eye on factors other than the number of visits when considering page ranking and page authority.
You might get hundreds of visitors landing on your website on a fair basis, but if they were to click away because your content was not relevant to the title, it will impact your rankings.
How to Avoid Clickbait?
You must pay attention to your webpage title and headlines. Google’s algorithms can understand the content of your website and will ensure whether it matches the page title and headline.
In order to avoid being penalized, you should ensure your webpage title and headlines represent what your content and URL are about. You need to avoid clickbait in all circumstances, and we will be sharing one easy tip on how you can do this. Here’s what you can do to avoid clickbait:
Create SEO Title and Headings
This method is great if you want to avoid clickbait. You need to ensure that your page’s title and headlines are SEO-friendly and relevant to its content. You can do thorough keyword research to discover the most searched keywords related to your content and simply have them included in your page title and headings.
Once you have all your keywords, you can implement them appropriately into your content. Always include these keywords in your website title and headings.
SEO tools make keyword recommendations for your content, and also suggest meta descriptions, and much more.
All in All
Clickbait might seem tempting if you want to increase traffic to your website in the shortest possible time. Clickbait is a commonly used marketing technique that aims to drive clicks and views but will harm your website ranking in the long run.
You can avoid clickbait by making your web page title and headlines all SEO-friendly. Moreover, with fast enough internet such as Rise Broadband internet, you can use SEO tools to pick out the most commonly searched keywords.
We hope you are now more aware of how you can avoid clickbait and why it is harmful to your website and brand authority. If you know of more ways how you can avoid clickbait, feel free to share with us below.
