How to Ditch Clickbait
By: Kristen Tally
Tags: Marketing, Content Marketing, Writing Tips, Blogging, Writing

If content is king, does its quality matter? The entire goal of content marketing is to try and nurture or even convert leads. So long as people are looking at your blog/e-book/infographic and you’re collecting the information you need, that’s what counts. Even if you’re not writing content for marketing purposes, isn’t the important part is that people look at it?

In reality, quality is the crown content should wear. Whether it’s a free e-book, blog, infographic or something entirely different, you should be able to hang your hat on it. It’s great if people are engaging with your content. But if people click on a blog only to be disappointed your article is completely irrelevant to the headline, you’re not making waves. You’re not even really treading water.

Even if you’re not a marketer and still creating content, you might have encountered and fought the temptation to go the route of less resistance and pick a “gimme” topic. But if you want engaged readers that stick around, you need to dump clickbait and leave it behind.

Find a New Angle

Sometimes the easiest route for your writing isn’t the best approach. Going for surface-level or 20,000-foot observation on a topic doesn’t work if you want to focus on a subject matter. A deep dive into a complicated or nuanced topic can’t be explained in a bog-standard 5-paragraph essay or blog post. And retreading the ground of more popular or mainstream articles won’t get you far either.

Find something new to say about your topic from a perspective that hasn’t been explored yet. If you’re really stumped, ask yourself a few questions:

Is there an intersection between your chosen topic and another discipline?

Has new or groundbreaking research shed more light on your topic that hasn’t been thoroughly explored?

Is there a “Devil’s Advocate” position to your own point of view you can dive into or refute?

Has this topic already been discussed and given a wide range of conclusions by other writers?

Medium itself discourages clickbait-y titles and sensationalized “hooks.” But outside of Medium, in a world where it’s a race to find as many eyeballs as possible, what’s the verdict? It turns out that Google feels similarly, stressing correct and accurate information in content over eye-catching titles and meta descriptions. Ditch the sensationalized title and description and get to the root of what you’re really trying to say. You want people to consume your content, not gloss over it. Readers will dive deeper into your content instead of skim the surface when you give them something to engage with.

Back Up Your Claims With Solid Evidence

If you have a point to make, you need to back it up. It’s not enough to just put the main thesis of your blog or article out in the open. If you have something you want to say — especially if it’s a hot take or even controversial — you’re going to need to cite some sources.

The best sources are ones with experts and solid research behind them. Research can be time-consuming, but having some authority backing up your claims is worth it. Much like writing a term paper, your word alone might not be alone to convince a reader of your point. Whether you’re quoting someone or referencing an article itself, citations give you credibility. Go beyond the first few results in your research while you’re at it; industry news sites can have the latest developments in a field or something groundbreaking that will transform a discipline.

It almost goes without saying, but you can’t lift content for your own. The line between plagiarizing content and referencing it is thin, but it’s still there. And just like with schoolwork, you can pay the price for duplicate content in SEO rankings. And there’s another benefit to citing your sources with an anchor link to the original article— if you can become an authority yourself, other authors may cite your own posts and give you an all-important backlink.

Educate Before You Try to Persuade

No one likes to be sold to. The “Buyer’s Journey” in marketing is a map of where your potential customer stands on their way to completing a purchase. In general, there are three major phases:

The Awareness Stage , where someone becomes aware they have a problem that needs solving or a question that needs an answer.

, where someone becomes aware they have a problem that needs solving or a question that needs an answer. The Consideration Stage , when a potential customer is now considering what solution to choose for their problem.

, when a potential customer is now considering what solution to choose for their problem. The Decision Stage, where a potential buyer considers and evaluates what steps they need to take to purchase a chosen solution and become a customer.

These stages can be a part of your writing regardless of if you have a product or service you’re pitching in your blog post or your content. The content you publish for your readers doesn’t need to sell something at all if you’re just shedding light on how a reader can solve a problem they have.

This works well because those readers are just looking for answers or possible solutions to a problem they have. They’re only becoming aware of a problem, so it’s too early to really be pitching something. It can turn them off from your content piece altogether, defeating the purpose of publishing it entirely. Prioritizing education, even if your readers are at the consideration stage, is still important. If you can provide one key insight and your readers walk away with something new, then you’re off to a fantastic start.

Stuff Your Content With Insights, Not Keywords

“Keyword stuffing” is the practice of cramming a chosen keyword into your writing as much as possible to try and game the Google search engine results page (SERP). In theory, the more the keyword appears, the better your chances are for ranking near the top.

In the past, this tactic might have worked. However, with Google frowning on this practice and recommending content creators focus on page quality, restricting your keywords to the major features of your article like the title tag, description and URL sets up your metadata without sacrificing the quality Google is looking for. Using keywords sparingly makes for better overall content and a better strategy.

Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels

Leave the Clickbait at the Door

Content is king and quality is its crown. In that regard, focusing on what you can bring to the table and not what your content can do for you in clicks, web traffic and engagement can yield better results. Invest in writing and creating content that educates instead of strictly fostering clicks.

You may not go viral because of your eye-catching title, but the readers who do engage with your content will be interested in what you have to say through the end of your article — or at least beyond the opening sentence.