The temptation is clear

Here's a common question on every online publisher's mind: What are users most likely to click on when visiting a page? Is it an image? a headline? an ad?

Poynter's latest Eyetrack study suggests users typically click on headlines while ignoring pictures almost entirely.

But a new clickmap tool, introduced by Carsten Andreasen, a media researcher at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, finds YouTube may have changed this stubborn habit.

If clever adbuilders add YouTube-style "play" arrows to a screengrab instead of a simple image, user habits flip almost instantly.

While headlines normally beat images in terms of click attractiveness by 5 to 10 times, users click on images with the arrow overlay 2 to 3 times more than the headline, according to a post from Ernst Poulsen.