A popular click-bait site.
The biggest hurdle for blogs and websites in general is visitor rate. Every site wants to increase their click-through rate in order to get more visitors. There are specific ways in which you can increase the appeal and attractiveness of your links and headers. Here some secrets that sites like Buzzfeed use that you can use to modify your signage to help better their allure.
- Limit headline size. Headlines should be maximum 50 characters or 8 words. Any bigger than that and readers lose focus.
- Front-load keywords. Put more attractive and important word at the beginning of the sentence to draw attention to them.
- Use numbers. Big numbers written as digits (1,000,000,000) are more attractive compared to small numbers written as words (ten thousand).
- Offer the readers an emotional promise. Promise to let them in on something the they will either hate or love.
- Offer the readers a chance to learn something. Promise to let them in on a learning experience. Tell them that they will learn a skill or trick if they visit your site.
- Propose urgency. Dangling a deadline compels readers to click. Adding lines such as Before its too late can increase the urgency of a headline.
- Use imperatives. Do verbs tell the reader what they will be doing. Find out more, Improve the speed of, Learn to love and Get ready to are good example of using imperative verbs.
- Avoid using dates. Dates can artificially age an article. The less specific a date the better.
- Use lists. Everyone loves a list. They are concise and ordered.
Improving your visitor count is simply a matter of making links and displays as appealing to browsers as possible. No one wants to click on a link that seems boring or mundane. Visitors are attracted to links and headers in the same way most of us are attracted to catchy ads or to shocking headlines in a tabloid magazine.
Corey Guirestante 