In general, clickbait is misleading or sensationalist content created with the sole purpose of earning page views on a website. Sometimes, publishers use clickbait to drive traffic to their site, so they can earn more advertising money, clicks, or conversions.
Clickbait language is more emotional than informational. Headlines like “You won’t believe” or “Try this one simple trick” are meant to spark curiosity or other strong emotions that result in a click. However, the content that follows is rarely informative or verifiable.
Clickbait can appear in many formats, like blog posts, banner ads, and SERP ads.
This Buzzfeed article does follow some SEO guidelines: its page title and headline accurately represent its content. However, the emotionally charged headline uses a false promise (“guaranteed to make you”) to encourage you to click on the article and its affiliate links.
In this example, we see that the page title and URL don’t match, and the language is pretty sensationalist. The headline promises we’ll be “shocked” by a “superfood” that “melts fat.” Its high-stakes offer and exciting language are meant to earn page views and conversions.
Brands can also use clickbait language in a video’s title or description to earn views. In the following example, the video’s headline uses all caps, extra punctuation, and a titillating image to get readers to click through to their video:
We all want to develop content that draws readers to our website, and there are plenty of content marketing techniques that can help—but all aren’t SEO-friendly.
Google now knows more about your website’s content than ever, thanks to its various updates. If your webpage’s title, headings, and URL aren’t relevant to its content, Google might penalize you, which could severely impact your rankings.
Clickbait can also affect your:
The short answer is no. While some clickbait titles may drive a lot of traffic to your site, Google looks at more than just the number of visitors when considering page authority and page rank.
You may get hundreds of people clicking through to your site daily, but if they click away because your content doesn’t match the title and URL you provided, it can affect your rankings.
Pay attention to your page titles and heading structure. Google’s algorithms can understand the content written on your site and will check if it matches its headline and page title.
Google’s most recent Page Title Update now enables the search engine to display a “replacement” title tag when your page’s title doesn’t accurately match its content. To avoid this, make sure your page title and headers accurately represent what your content’s about.
Make sure your page’s title tag and headings are SEO-compliant and relevant to its content. Keyword research can help you discover target keywords you can include in your page’s title, headings, and copy.
Using your target keywords throughout your content signals to Google that your page is relevant to your target keyword. You can use the Keyword Magic tool to discover relevant or related keywords to target with your content or ads. Start by adding a seed keyword to the tool’s input and selecting your target country:
The tool returns short- and long-tailed keyword suggestions and key metrics, like their search volume and projected CPC cost:
If you’re creating content around your seed keyword, toggle the Questions view to see what users are asking about your topic:
Save any potential keywords to your Keyword Manager. The manager stores groups of related keywords in lists, so you can compare them at a glance or send them to other tools in the suite.
Once you have your keywords, it’s important to implement them correctly in your content. Try to include your target keywords in your page title and headings. Use the SEO Writing Assistant to find and fix keyword stuffing in your content, so it’s friendly to web crawlers and readers.
For blogging inspiration, add your newly discovered keywords to he SEO Content Template. The Content Template analyzes top-ranking articles related to your keyword, then shares SEO recommendations that can help your article rank similarly.
You can enter more than one keyword into the SEO Content Template:
The tool makes recommendations for your content’s semantically related keywords, readability, page title meta descriptions, and more. It even suggests potential backlink opportunities for your article once it’s live:
Much like keywords, your content should be relevant to the user’s search intent. There are four common types of search intent:
Use the Topic Research tool’s Mind Map feature for additional insights that can help you determine search intent. Review the latest headlines related to your content idea, and any current questions people are asking about your topic:
Get Keyword Suggestions
with the Keyword Magic Tool, the biggest keyword database on the market
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