One of the most common mistakes when writing blog articles is not spending enough time writing a compelling headline. The headline is arguably as important as the content itself.
Consider your readers, they subscribe to dozens of feeds. Each day their feed reader is full of new information competing for their attention. These people are likely to speed read this information, only clicking on those articles with an interesting title.
You could write a fantastic article, but if it is let down by a poor headline, it is likely to get lost in a sea of blog titles competing for the readers attention. It is no different to going into a shop and buying a newspaper or magazine. It is the headline that counts.
Darren Rowse ran a series on 31 Days To Building A Better Blog. I submitted two articles to this series. One article received far more readers than the other. The reason I believe is the headline.
Article 1: Unlock Hidden Treasures In Your Blog
This is an example of what I feel is a good blog title. The headline generates interest and intrigue. The headline is like a teaser, enticing readers to click through and read the article. This article received a lot of traffic. It ended up being reviewed on StumbleUpon too which drove further traffic to the article.
Article 2: Increase Traffic By Fixing Broken Links
The title of this post is pretty boring. It’s obvious what the article is about and there is no incentive to read the full article. This article received far less traffic than the first one.
So next time you write an article for your web site or blog, consider the headline you will use. It could be the difference between success and failure. If you need some inspiration for headlines then copyblogger has written an excellent series on how to write magnetic headlines.
Photo courtesy of MoreThanReal.
Distributed under the Creative Commons License.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 What Everybody Ought to Know About Blogging - 97 Blog Tips // Aug 23, 2007 at 12:49 pm
[...] Do You Make This Mistake? by Dean Taplin [...]
2 KingJacob // Aug 26, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Its important to write good headlines but its also important that you endure the keywords in your titles deal with your content.
3 KingJacob // Aug 30, 2007 at 12:59 am
P.S. endure is supposed to be ensure,oops
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