Yvonne Russell started a wide ranging conversation on her Writer’s Cafe which eventually rolled around to the topic of blog headlines. It gave me the idea to collect outstanding blog headlines for about 10 days, and then see what the exercise can tell us about writing them. So here they are! (My criteria? I simply chose the headlines that seriously caught my eye while going through my massive pile of reader feeds!)
Are You Ready to Get Lucky? Let’s be honest, the mild sexual overtones of Karen Swim’s headline don’t hurt. But regardless, her headline poses a question you can hardly resist investigating. Everybody wants to be ready. Everybody wants to be lucky.
You Know Your Article Is Finished When … A Perfectionist’s Dilemma Yvonne Russell puts herself smack dab in the middle of your your head, stating her theme almost as if it were you talking to yourself. And, she arouses curiosity by suggesting her post will contain conflicting points of view on a difficult problem.
Why Olympic Sponsors Should Remain Silent About Human Rights Abuses Nothing flashy from my blog buddy Andrew, but wow, is this headline effective. It’s packed with emotional words, clearly states the topic, and takes a provocative editorial position.
How Social Networking Helped Me Get This Writing Gig Without fanfare, Gina hits a home run. “How-to” headlines are strong to begin with. “Social Networking” is a hot topic, widely misunderstood. I want to know more about it. To learn how social networking can make me money through an example (a story) — make it a grand slam home run.
Why I’m Proud To Be A Blogging Dork Joanna Young demonstrates how a single word can transform a ho-hum headline into a winner. The word “dork” is funny, but also mysterious — what does she mean by dorky? I am doing something that makes me a dork?
What’s Your Loneliness IQ? Dr. Ellen Weber asks a question, but unlike Karen Swim’s, which is a complete mystery, Ellen’s clearly identifies a theme of universal interest — loneliness. Gaining self-knowledge is always appealing, and the headline implies a test or an evaluation. Irresistible.
Who Has the Right to Post Your Work? Jeanne Dininni, a skilled writer, asks a top of mind question on an issue that more than likely befuddles her readership. Even though the headline contains no sparkling words, it resonates on the strength of her well chosen topic.
Unexpected things I learned doing this exercise.
1. Very few headlines caught my attention.
2. Cute, clever headlines are somewhat annoying, especially if I’m in a hurry to get through my daily reading. Longer, informative posts make it a no-brainer to decide whether or not to read the post.
3. Headlines with an emotional appeal, a “what’s in it for me” approach, catch my interest even if the topic is way outside my usual areas of interest.
4. On the other hand, if the topic is within my usual areas of interest, the title has to be factually detailed and promise a fresh perspective and/or a lively discussion.
5. As Jeanne’s post illustrates (I guess all of them, really), selecting a post-worthy topic is half the battle in composing an effective headline. How many times have you seen a flamboyant headline, only to find the post itself contains the same old stuff?
Do my conclusions agree with your preferences? What kind of headline makes you want to read a post?
Headline writing advice from the experts
Leo Babauta
Brian Clark
Michael Fortin
I often don’t give too much thought to the titles when I write my posts– gotta slow it down and get more creative…
DeafMom, Some writers tell say they spend as much time on the headline than the post itself. That seems a little extreme, but there’s no doubt more people will read your headline than the post itself.
Hi Brad
A great roundup. You really hit home the importance of a headline when you say in your comments “… more people will read your headline than the post itself.”
I enjoyed your analysis of each headline. This has inspired me to take a closer look at why a particular headline catches my attention.
Thanks for getting the brain cells rattling on this one.
Interesting analysis Brad. I think my preference is for a clean explanation with some kind of twist to grab my attention.
I don’t really like clever-clever headlines because most writers can’t deliver on the promise and you end up disappointed.
Have you ever done one of Brian Clark’s headline writing competitions? That was a real challenge – start with a headline (from Cosmo) and then create the post. It led to me writing a different kind of post, but it did work well. I wouldn’t want to do that all the time, but worth experimenting once in a while.
Joanna
Yvonne, intuition can be a good guide to writing effective headlines, don’t you think? Joanna, sounds like you found Brian’s challenge helpful. Maybe next time I’ll give it a try.
Hi Brad
Absolutely… intuition is so important. Sometimes, it’s not really a conscious cognitive deliberation to write a specific headline.
Sometimes a headline just falls into place and “feels” right.
Hi, Brad!
Thanks for posting the headline I wrote while in a hurry when nothing more catchy would come to mind! Because I wasn’t able to come up with anything more exciting on the spot, I decided to simply reveal the topic of the post, but still take advantage of the time-tested techniques of 1) personalizing the headline by asking a question and 2) personalizing the question by relating it to the reader–basically using your “what’s in it for me” approach. So, you see, there was some method to my madness! And I guess my tactics worked!
Thanks for collecting a great group of headlines and linking to all these intriguing posts! Headlines are indeed a fascinating topic!
About your point that more people read our headlines than our posts: Surely that’s true. Yet, I suspect that if we paid more attention to the crafting of our headlines, as your post suggests, the difference between the number of people who read our headlines and the number who read our posts would narrow considerably.
Fantastic idea for a post! Enjoyed it!
Cheers,
Jeanne
Jeanne, there seems to be some agreement that headline writing is intuitive, part art, part science. You seem to do a good job of both. How much time do you typically like to spend on your headlines?
Brad,
The short answer is, “It varies.”
Here’s the long one: Sometimes, a post headline (or article title) comes to me first and I then write the article or post. Other times, an idea strikes me and my thoughts about a title will be going around in my head the whole time I’m writing the piece. Still other times, I’ll get so absorbed in the actual writing that I’ll give little thought to a headline at all until the piece is finished. In the last case, I then find myself needing to come up with a headline fairly quickly just so I can post the piece that’s otherwise finished. (Hence, some of my less imaginative headlines.)
Oftentimes (e.g., when writing a guest post or article in MS-Word), I’ll even go through several evolutions of a title before deciding on my final one. And sometimes this causes me to put the piece aside for a bit, while waiting for “headline inspiration” to strike.
I’ve been known to change a title I wasn’t happy with–even after posting. I try to doing avoid that, though, whenever possible–particularly if I do a Google search and find that the post has already been indexed by search engines under the current title. While a good title is important, it’s definitely just as important to consider the search engine traffic we could potentially lose by doing anything that would make our posts more difficult for them to find.
Sometimes it takes me quite a while to craft a headline (though I’ve never timed myself); and other times, I write one quickly–most often (in the second case), sticking with a simple descriptive headline which informs the reader of what the post is about.
In every case, though, I always try my best to use whatever techniques I can to make the headline as intriguing–or at least as interesting–as possible. (Of course, I’ll be the first to admit that my attempts to do that have been more successful at certain times than they have at others.)
Hope that answers your question!
Jeanne
Jeanne, thank you for your very detailed response. You have a real gift for describing the writing process, do you know that? It’s never occurred to me to change a title after publishing, but I am getting into the habit of customizing the permalink (WordPress makes it very easy) to make it shorter and, sometimes, more keyword-oriented than my written title.
Hi Brad,
Thanks for the mention of my post.
Some of these headlines look good, and I look forward to checking out several of them over the weekend.
Cheers
Andrew
Brad,
I think that’s just my analytical nature kicking in! I’m every bit as detailed in my description of most topics. Of course, when one has a writing blog, the ability to break the writing process into its smallest components and then thoroughly describe them can be especially helpful!
Orble also makes it easy to customize a post’s permalink, if desired, through using the “Short Title” field, in addition to the “Post Title” field. The short title is the one actually used to create the permalink. If nothing is entered into this field, the post title is filled in automatically when the link is created.
I’ve used that field occasionally to shorten a permalink; but, if I remember correctly, I believe the post is then indexed by Google under the shortened title, rather than the actual Post title. I’ll have to double-check that, though.
This might not matter to every writer; but I know that in most cases I’d rather have my posts indexed under their full titles–despite the fact that I often tend to write long titles!
Jeanne
Andrew, best of luck with your new blog. How’s it going so far? Jeanne, forgive me for stating the obvious about your writing blog and talents.
The issue of permalink titles/full titles is interesting. I’ve got to do some research on that.
Brad,
What’s to forgive? How could I ever take issue with all the fine compliments you always so graciously toss my way!
Jeanne
Hey Brad! Thanks for mentioning Gina’s blog title. It was her first official post! I am so glad you liked it, and added it to your round-up. Great reminder for how important our titles are.
Have a great night!
Darlene
Interview Guru
http://www.interviewchatter.com
Hi Brad! Wow, I’m honored to be included in this line-up. I also laughed because this is the one area of writing at which I totally struggle. I have publicly admitted to stinking at headlines, but maybe there’s hope for me after all. I loved Jeanne’s description of writing headlines. Great advice that I can use. This was a really good discussion with some great points and a timely lesson for me. Thanks Brad!
Hi Darlene, Gina must be quite a writer! Karen, Funny you say that, because I think your headlines are usually pretty darn good. But I’m glad you were able to get some pointers here at Word Sell.
I wonder if the following will get Brad’s attention?
“Hey Brad Shorr, your medical information is now online!”
I put this as the title to my weekly newsletter and my most recent blog entry:
http://www.privacybuilders.com/privacy-community/2008/6/13/hey-brad-shorr-your-medical-information-is-now-online.html
I agree that titles are very important. But titles that have your own name in them really catch the eye.
Brad,
Checked one of my shortened titles on Google, and the post was indexed under the short title–though the full title was also referenced beneath it. In a sense it may be “six of one, half-dozen of the other,” since I did also find the post when I searched using the full title. But, though Google foundd the post under the full title, it was still listed under the shortened title, with the full title on line two. That might matter to one writer, whereas it might not bother another at all. Haven’t really thought deeply enough on the issue, though, to determine what advantages/disadvantages each method might offer.
Karen, how sweet of you to compliment my headline-writing description! So glad I’ve succeeded in presenting the process in a way that’s helpful to you!
Jeanne
To answer your question, Brad, my blog is going great – thanks for asking.
I am thoroughly enjoying the process of researching the issues and attempting to organize and express my thoughts and opinions in a logical manner. The subject is one I am passionate about and seems to offer a wide variety interesting topics to comment upon.
As my blog is new, my readership is low and I have only had comments from one other reader apart from yourself (thanks heaps for well thought-out and constructive comment). However, its early days yet and for now I am thoroughly enjoying the writing as well as participating in discussions on other blogs.
Cheers
Andrew
Thanks Brad, for posting these headlines! What a fun read! Great to see the new bloggers as well as old friends here! And I’d been far too busy the past few weeks – so it was cool to sit with feet up and read such wisdom!
Ellen, glad we had a chance to help you relax. Andrew, your blog’s going to be great. I hope Word Sell people check it out; you’ve got such an important theme.
Thanks Brad.