Click Through, Hooks and Bait
What "click through," "hooks" and "bait" are -- an Introduction
"Click through" is the number of times that someone who comes to your "splash page" clicks on a link and actually visits your site and the material in your site.
Your "splash page" is the first place that a visitor comes to -- usually your home page -- when visiting your site (the url or address you give someone when inviting them to visit your site).
On the web, "click through" is the same thing as having someone pick up and read your firm brochure or keep your business card or see you in the yellow pages and call your office. Without "click through "your site usually is not connecting with your potential audience.
Click through is influenced very heavily by two things: hooks and bait.
"Hooks" are the topic areas or information on your home page. The sample home page from the design essays gives a good example of solid hooks. Jane Doe's site contains the following "hooks:"
"For More Information:
Her "hooks" -- reasons a visitor should spend more time at her site
-- also contain bait. Instead of just listing:
She provides the promise of specific content -- and baits the hook with information or clues pointing to the content.
Bait is thus information, specific information, as to what the content on your site is about. A naked hook would have been "Criminal Defense Information" or "Divorce Information." Too much bait would have been a paragraph of explanation for each item (the titles are extremely efficient in providing information. Any more information would take up space and keep a visitor from seeing the entire list on one screen of information).
Why Hooks and Bait are Difficult and Why They Matter.
Generally visitors to a site will look at the first screenfull of information that displays on their computer and decide whether or not to spend any more time. As a result, you may need to provide some bait just to get viewers to the "real bait." For example, the Union Square splash page has the statement "Union Square contains substantial on-line materials for alternative dispute resolution and mediation, tutorials on the design of web pages for lawyers, advice for thriving in law school and surviving legal practice, legal information covering a wide range of topics and information about the attorneys at Union Square" before it displays any of the hooks for the site. Without the bait to lead to the hooks, click through on the end topics dropped off.
Next, I have the hooks -- the five topic areas:
I don't try to have more than five hooks (remember -- the general rule is three to five hooks).
When I used the "naked" hooks I got a click through of about 25%. One out of four people who came to the site's opening page did more than look at the "splash page" -- which means that three out of four people left without visiting even though they had considered the site from a search engine or a comment on it at some other location.
The "naked hook "design was much cleaner than what I have now. It fit my personal tastes (my professional home page still uses the "naked hook" format -- if you've gotten that far you either want to know more about me or you don't -- so my click through on it is about 95%). But, a naked hook design did not work and did not fit the purpose of a splash page.
So, I added "bait" -- descriptive information to go with the hooks. Bait tells a visitor what they are going to find when they visit your web site. In 1995 that didn't matter. There were so few sites that a visitor did not have any choice and a hook by itself worked as bait. Now, visitors look and either go in or leave rather quickly.
By adding bait to the splash page the click through rate went up to between 95% and 98%. From one out of four visitors, I went to almost four out of four visitors deciding to visit my pages.
The Jane Doe sample page uses the same model.
There are two common problems web pages have.
The first is putting nothing but naked hooks up. Because of the nature of the web (and the nature of most sites), naked hooks carry the message to any visitor that there is nothing inside but more naked hooks. There are many, many "naked hook" (contentless sites or sites without content) sites now. This is especially true of professionals and their web sites. Most visitors will leave without spending further time at your site if they encounter only a series of naked hooks.
The second problem is putting too much bait up. A well used and well reviewed site will survive too much bait. But, if a new site is built that has too much bait, many visitors will get confused and leave before they ever have a chance to visit. "Too much" "too confusing" is the second most common reason for passing a site by -- right after "it was a nothing site" (i.e. it appeared to have no content). Your site needs a clear theme and not to be hidden by all the bait.
A balance between naked hooks on the one hand, and an excess of almost random content on the other, is essential.
I've limited the amount of bait at any level in my site. A click on a mediation bait item takes you to a page that displays more bait on mediation topics. If I had put all of the bait (the essay names and the descriptions) on the splash page, I would have used up the entire first two (or more) screens on that page and that would have cut off the rest of my material from view. (Generally, if it isn't on the first few screens, visitors will not look for it unless the page is very clearly laid out).
For contact with clients, the Jane Doe site is better still. The hooks are written so that the titles of the articles contain bait. If you need the information on the site, just reading the first screenfull (scroll down until the top of the screen is Jane Doe's name line and you will see what I mean) tells you that she can answer your questions and take care of your problems.
In many ways a good splash page is written like a yellow pages add and has the same elements of "pull."
The type of web page you design should fit your personal needs, interests and personality as well as the reason you are on the net. This general rule extends to your hooks and bait.
If you are seeking to make yourself available to divorce clients, three click throughs by people contemplating divorce are better than one hundred click throughs by young internet users looking for a good on-line game. The wrong type of hooks or bait will offend potential clients or mislead them into discarding your site while looking for one that meets their needs.
At the same time, without hooks or bait most sites will not reach anyone.
A proper understanding of how a web page functions, what works as hooks and the right type of bait will help your web site reach its intended audience and increase the number of click throughs of potential clients you achieve.
Postscript
For an excellent example of hooks and bait (aimed at a particular audience) see http://www.aftab.com/ -- a legal site with approximately 20,000 hits a month.
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