Gotcha! If you're reading this, then you obviously clicked, which makes you a lot more like everyone else than you thought you were, unless you already thought you were.
This phrase "will make you" is the number one choice for writers trying to bait readers into clicking their article, and it's twice as strong as all the others.
For the most part, I could give a crap about search engine optimization and clicks. Maybe I should, since I'm trying to sell a book on my other blog. Nonetheless, I could care less. But I was looking up SEO tips just to make sure I don't care.
And now I'm sure I don't care about SEO on my website. What I found in the meantime will make you cry. Just kidding, that's another clickbait headline. I found this handy graph that lists the most irresistible headlines.
Headlines aren't the only thing. There's a few things you can do to get your site more traffic. First of all, you need to put original data on there. Do some research, make your results look pretty, and post it up. Then people will go to your page because you have something nobody else does. Pretty sure I haven't much original research on here, except for some pictures here and there.
You can also beg other people to link back to your page from their own sites. Being that my site is anonymous, I don't see myself asking anyone for endorsements.
Or you can make sure your posts are 1900 words. That's a bit too long for me.
And finally, you can post naked pictures of yourself. Just kidding.
And finally, you can use headlines that grab hold of people's limbic system, taking control of their motor cortex and making them share, like, and retweet the sh** out of your content as if it was actually good.
I met a friend of a friend once who worked for a digital news outlet in our area; his job every morning was to go on Google trends, find all the buzzwords, and rearrange all the articles on their site to use those words, probably embedded in these catchy phrases you see above. That sounds like a cool job, despite the fact that I find something wrong with all this.
There's something about it that seems unfair. As a teacher all my life up until recently, I always had a strong urge to empower people's minds and diffuse confusion. Behavioral psychology is a powerful thing, and with it, yes I'm going to say it, comes great responsibility. Maybe a part of me believes that once you discover a trick like this, you can only use it for good, not to make money, or to influence politics, or to get yourself a date.
But if you could care less about responsibility or morals or enriching the minds of others to be more powerful and less susceptible to deceit as opposed to taking advantage of those breaches in our mental fortitude, then this stuff is for you. Game on!
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