Picture Bait
December 30th, 2006 by Michael Gray in SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Ok I am so getting out ahead of the pack on this one and am taking full credit for coining the term and of picture bait. Sure people have been doing, maybe even in very deliberate and manipulative ways, but gosh darn it I’m giving it a name, and if science has taught us anything it’s that naming something gives you ownership.
All right Gray what the heck are you talking about what is picture bait? If you follow any of the popular meme tracking sites you’ll quite often see pictures next to some of stories. Well here’s the thing many of them use the pictures from the original post, and if your picture is click enticing or in some other way visually interesting or stimulating you can get extra clicks because of it. Some of you with old world experience (thats print fer you youngsters) will say gee great Gray you discovered adding images gets you more attention, like duh welcome to advertising 102. Some of you newer folks are are now bemoaning the fact that the web 2.0 world will now become more visually “noisy” not something you needed in an area already overcrowded with people competing for attention.
To which I say yep guilty on both accounts. A lot of the things that work really well in print, also work really well on the web. Growing up in New York it’s hard not to appreciate title bait being exposed to the New York Post on a regular basis. However lots of web folk missed that print/advertising education, so what was old is new to them. As far as competing for attention, if you haven’t realized you need to do it, and that it works, well then don’t ask me why the only people who read your blog are your mom and your sister.
Sure once you’ve got a big audience you won’t need to get up and pull ‘crazy stunts’ all the time and you can concentrate on creating great content, but when you’re fighting the uphill battle you do what you can to get noticed. For those of you who don’t think it works, did you say “what the heck is he doing” when you saw the picture on this page or in your feed reader, and did you pause for even the slightest amount of time because of it.
Sphere It
December 30th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Personally im coining toonbait……
December 30th, 2006 at 9:27 am
as much as i like doing the picture bait, i don’t have time to draw or look for the image
December 30th, 2006 at 9:37 am
My bad for not mentioning it, istockphotos.com pictures of just about everything for about $1 a pop you can’t go wrong.
December 30th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Uh oh — be prepared for the onslaught of ridiculous pictures next to every article and post in the web! (Thanks for the advertising 102 refesher though.)
December 30th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I wonder why the pic didn’t show in Bloglines? Usually does when I post one.
December 30th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
MG - the Post is a great example for picture baiting as well. They are competing against the other rags in the deli newsstand all right next to eachother, so throwing a picture of Paris Hilton or Christy Brinkley’s husband’s teen mistress on the cover is sure to grab your attention.
Brian - the pic showed up in my Bloglines.
December 30th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
The only thing I can add is to always use a caption for pictures. Go to any news website and try to NOT read the picture captions. You can’s do it. Whatever words you place in a picture caption are 100% guaranteed to be read. No other text element on the page besides the headline will attract the eye more than a picture caption.
December 31st, 2006 at 1:32 am
Gray, have you started your New Year’s Eve party a day early?
December 31st, 2006 at 1:42 am
>>Ok I am so getting out ahead of the pack on this one and am taking full credit for coining the term and of picture bait. Sure people have been doing, maybe even in very deliberate and manipulative ways, but gosh darn it I’m giving it a name, and if science has taught us anything it’s that naming something gives you ownership.
Put the bottle down. Step away from the bottle. Get some sleep. Get sober. Get over ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ might be.
Thanks you.
December 31st, 2006 at 3:38 am
Whatever “please work please” is, it isn’t working
January 1st, 2007 at 2:22 am
I love the tie between web 2.0 / blog linkbaiting and the NY Post / print world headlines. “If it bleeds, it leads.” Not to mention the 7% of G traffic on images, plus the recent inlining of images on the main results. And the jettisoning of grubby launch strategies once cruising altitude has been met… You got it.