Avoid Clickbait Posts to Get More Organic Traffic from Facebook

1. Avoid Clickbait Posts to Get More Organic Traffic from Facebook Posts sounding like clickbait posts could be one of the major factors why you aren’t getting sufficient traffic from Facebook. Facebook is one of the most important platforms used by businesses. An experienced outsourcing company offering social media marketing in Long Island can also ensure that you attain maximum ROI from your Facebook and other social media marketing efforts. Despite all the challenges faced by Facebook from its own Instagram platform, and other social networks including Snapchat and Pinterest, it still is the most popular active social network which is why businesses still value their participation in it. While you may be maintaining an active presence on Facebook, there could be a situation where you still don’t get the kind of traffic you need from those Facebook posts you actively put up. You believe you post stuff that is interesting and worthwhile for your target but something keeps them from getting the publicity you expect. And you aren’t getting as many people to visit your website. The Facebook Algorithm Remember that Facebook has an algorithm too, and that algorithm keeps changing. As a result, the strategy you adopt on the kind of posts you put up also needs to keep evolving in order to get the clicks you need. The strategy of a year back may not be relevant now. Some kinds of posts could evoke negative results from the social network’s algorithm. You need to create posts or make changes to your posts to ensure they’re more in line with the preferences of Facebook’s algorithm. Anti-clickbait Algorithm to Target Sensational Headlines Facebook’s algorithms are against clickbait posts. This isn’t any recent algorithm change, however, and has been around since 2014. A clickbait post is something that aims to sensationalize the content posted to excite the reader and potentially mislead them to make them click on the link in the post that leads to your website. You’d have seen posts like this, containing sensational headlines such as, “Here’s how to earn 5 million dollars a day” or “The trick to get yourself a flat belly in just a week.” As you can probably realize, these posts don’t contain any clear information, but just a sensational headline so you would be tempted to click the link to satisfy your desire to learn more. The posts themselves have no worthy information but just some content to make the reader click the link. Sounds spammy, but there have been plenty of such posts, which is why Facebook decided to crack down on them from 2014 since often these links led to low quality or spammy content. But back then they came right up in the news feed because lots of people would click them only to be disappointed by the poor content in the target site.

2. Headlines that Inform and Don’t Sensationalize People wanted headlines that enabled them to decide whether to go through the full article before having to actually click through. Facebook then measured the time spent by people on a clicked link from a Facebook post, and how fast they got back to Facebook from that link. The longer the time users spent on the clicked link, the more convinced Facebook was that the content had value and relevance. From links clicked from typical clickbait posts, users would mostly get back to Facebook right away since they didn’t find anything of value in it. As a result, Facebook started punishing those clickbait headlines by dropping them way down in the News Feed. So the key here is to ensure your website has content that keeps users - who come to your site by clicking the link in your Facebook post – stay in your site longer. For that you need relevant, quality and engaging content in your website. Identifying Clickbait-sounding Phrases Then in 2016, Facebook figured out another technique to deal with clickbait by identifying phrases commonly used in clickbait headlines. By seeing these phrases, Facebook would determine if posts are typical clickbait ones and contain low quality content in their source sites. So, if your Facebook page keeps posting clickbait headlines consistently, those posts will come quite low in the News Feed. Even if you have others publishing clickbait type of links right from your website, your Facebook posts and even links posted from your website to Facebook could suffer a decline in reach. Keep Away from Exaggerated Language The best way to avoid this is to stop using headlines having sensational or exaggerated language in your posts. Instead, make sure that it clearly gives readers an idea of what to expect in the content linked so they can decide whether to click or not. The rest is obviously about on-page optimization of your website that will ensure people stay in your site in terms of having quality content optimized for relevant keywords and search phrases. And it goes without saying that your website should load fast, because if it doesn’t, visitors won’t necessarily wait for your website to load. Engagement Bait also Targeted Along with the clickbait algorithm update, Facebook also released an update to tackle engagement bait. The coinage may sound strange, but it’s easy to figure out what it indicates. Facebook doesn’t like artificially boosting the engagement level of your posts, which is what it refers to as “engagement bait”. Facebook has indicated using machine learning for identifying and demoting posts asking people to like, comment or share. Words such as “like”, “comment”, “tag” should be avoided. Repeated use of these tactics could cause your Facebook user reach to drop. Experienced Long Island digital marketing companies have a streamlined and customized social media marketing package for businesses. With their expertise, your social media page in the relevant platforms will have just the right kind of content that will educate users and build up traffic to your site. (631) 494-3324