How an aspiring search marketer views clickbait

After spending a lot of time learning the ins and outs of Google AdWords and search marketing in general, I have a new perspective on clickbait.

On social media, I am a wallflower; observing popular posts on my LinkedIn/Facebook feed.  Now, I am analyzing the observations I have made with my relatively new 'search marketing filter'.

In my opinion, clickbait is all about making your sub-par content shine with an interesting thumbnail or a general description of the full picture of your content.  These brief descriptions must be a bit wacky/somewhat inappropriate for the respective platform.  Here's an example of one I saw on LinkedIn:

"Wow, doesn't this guy know that LinkedIn is a professional network?  No pants? I better click read more to confirm my assumption that this guy is misusing this professional platform.."

-One of the dudes that liked this post

Now, I should have clicked to explain what I'm trying to say, but I can assure you that the no pants comment was probably pertaining to only having a bathing suit for a business meeting, or something along those lines.  My apologies.

My point being, I am normally disappointed when I click an article with an interesting title, only to find that the content of the article almost has nothing to do with the title.  The clever way to do it is to contradict what the title says in your content so it is at least relevant to the audience; internet sarcasm in a way.

After running different ads on Google AdWords on the search side of things, I know the importance of having a landing page that is relevant to your ad. You want to intercept someones search based on a keyword(s) in their search query and connect them to your site/business that hopefully relates to exactly what they're looking for. 

With this experience, I find it very interesting that clickbait would not really fly on a search ad as you want the landing page to reflect the ad; that is, if you want to have a positive quality score or better yet, have your ad appear in the first place.  I know that it sounds like I'm hating on clickbait quite a bit, I totally am.  I see how valuable it can be for an advertiser, but I find it misleading.  

There is definitely a difference between a catchy, relevant title and clickbait.