Get More Clicks Using These 3 Emotional Hot Buttons

This guest post is by Glen Andrews of GlenAndrews.com.

Here’s what the top internet marketers know that most people don’t…

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to get traffic from social media sites, article directories, or through Google’s organic search. The three most effective ways to get someone to click on your links is to invoke one of these three emotional hot-buttons:

1. pain
2. pleasure
3. curiosity.

Let’s take a look at each of these three emotions and how they can get you more traffic and more clicks.

1. Pain

Most people will do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure. Marketing firms all around the world have know this for decades. Advertisers have placed fear statements into ads in order to get us to take action. And guess what? It works! Advertising firms have made trillions of dollars using fear as a motivator to get us to take action.

The “mayhem” Allstate commercials on US TV are all fear-based. Most political campaigns are fear-based. Heck, the next time you watch TV, pay attention to the commercials and see which of the three emotional hot buttons they’re using to motivate their audiences.

So how can you use fear (pain) to get more traffic?

Most of what we do online is driven by headlines. Our tweets are short headlines. Our blog posts and pages are effectively links with headlines. Our videos, Facebook pages, and articles are all propelled by headlines. We all decide which links to click based on the text, and our own personal desires.

Examples of fear- and pain-based headlines

1. The Top 3 Reasons Most Entrepreneurs Fail Online
2. 6 Things To Avoid if You’re Going To Be Successful
3. Here’s Why Most Blogs Fail Within 24 months

If you can target your headlines (that is, links) so that they’ll speak to the emotions (pain, pleasure, curiosity) of your audience, you’ll not only attract better prospects, but you’ll quadruple your clickthrough rate.

2. Pleasure

Everyone wants to know “What’s in it for me? Why should I pay attention to you?” So you’ll get more clicks and traffic if you can tell your readers what benefits they’ll get by clicking your links. Let your readers visualize the pleasure they’ll receive from taking action.

Examples of pleasure- and benefit-based headlines

1. Top 3 Ways To Boost Productivity and Profits
2. Double Your Subscribers Within 14 Days
3. Earn a 6 Figure Income Part Time

3. Curiosity

This is by far my favorite. We are all born with a sense of curiosity. From infants to old age, we all have an incredible appetite for the unknown.

You’ve seen or heard TV and radio personalities use curiosity to keep us from changing the channel. Just before a commercial break, the radio or TV personality will spit out a headline that piques our curiosity, so we’ll stay tuned in for the answer.

They’ll say something like, “When we return, we’ll reveal how you can save hundreds on your property taxes.” or “When we come back, you’ll hear why President Obama doesn’t want you to see his birth certificate.”

These curiosity-provoking statements are also called “hooks.”

Some examples of curiosity headlines

1. Shrink Your Fat Zones
2. 8 Lies About Sunscreen
3. The NO-Pill Pain Remedy
4. 3 Things To A More Effective Blog
5. The 1 Thing All Bloggers Must Do To Make Money

Target your headlines

Again, your headlines should be targeted towards your readership. The more they speak directly to your audience, using these three emotions, the more clicks and traffic you’ll receive.

Note that it’s important to make sure your content is worthy of the headline. Nothing will turn people off more than a great headline, that “gets the click” but doesn’t deliver on the promise.

Everything we do on the internet revolves around headlines and links. If you get good at writing clickable headlines using these three emotions, you’ll easily get more traffic.

Glen Andrews has created niche sites, ebooks, and info products that produce a steady reliable income. Glen is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create and market a business online that makes them money.