Greekgeek's Online Odyssey - Hubpages and Online Article Writing Tips

The Most Powerful Way to Get Clickouts

I’ve had a lens that’s been driving me nuts. My Aligning Images tutorial was getting 500, 600, now 700-800 visitors a week, but it was always tier 2. Why?

Simple. People read tutorials, and then they leave. No clickouts means no tier one for you. I had included links to a free HTML editor and various other resources, and still, the fish weren’t biting.

I changed one graphic which I had created for my How to Get More Clicks, Sales tutorial. I didn’t really expect it to make that much of a difference.

Kapow. Tier one, baby. You can offer people freebies, useful resources, and printables on a silver platter, but they may not click. You need good clip art to get the clicks. (My favorite two are OpenClipart and clker.com.)

That, or everyone is too curious when they see a random URL of a YouTube video not to check it out.

I’d think that’s a joke, except that I’ve seen a similar “What’s in the box? I have to poke it!” effect when I use the Amazon module in thumbnail mode. Normally, people are less likely to click on small images than large ones. But if it’s a “what the heck IS that thing?!” type graphic, they click, because they want a closer look. Sometimes they buy it. More often they buy something else. Or, maybe, they don’t buy, but at least you scored a clickout!

I’ve seen a similar phenomenon on bizarre images with humorous captions that are slightly too small to read. Demotivational posters on Zazzle are very effective for clicks.

But of course, the most powerful way to get clickouts isn’t a killer, you’ve-just-got-to-click graphic.

The key is that you have to link to the Extreme Shepherding video.

3 Comments

  1. Bev says:

    Ha! I have that video on one of my Welsh lenses. It’s a hoot… was a TV ad in the UK. Wish it garnered me lots of clickouts! So are you suggesting some random, irresistible link – even if not related to lens contents?

    1. Greekgeek says:

      I was being silly. The main thing is that people tend to click on graphics, especially attractive-looking graphics. There is still a child in us that wants to poke the shiny button.

      My other point was that YouTube links are unusual: they are random gibberish and numbers that give no hint as to contents, yet people trust them enough to click on them. Whereas if someone has a link that’s supposed to be, say, an educational webpage, and it’s a string of gibberish and numbers, you might be suspicious: what is that link hiding? What’s the destination? The URL gives away nothing at all!

      But we’re used to that with YouTube, and we’re used to Youtube videos being fun, so we’re more likely to click on a YouTube link with no idea what it’s about.

      At least, that’s my theory.

  2. Tony Payne says:

    Very interesting and I agree, you need something catchy or quirky to make people want to click. I am experimenting with something to see if it makes a difference.

    Right now I have a lens that is getting over 1,000 visits a week, and it’s struggling to stay in the top tier! If I can increase the clickouts that ought to make a huge difference.

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