Are poor article headlines costing you readers?
This is mistake. It’s the headline that draws people in and encourages them to read what you’ve written
I prefer to think of article headlines rather than article titles, because if you think of newspaper headlines they are naturally designed to capture the attention of the reader very quickly. Your article headlines should be doing the same thing. However, at the end of the day whether you want to call them article headlines or article titles it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you understand how important they are.
Don’t just write a headline, move onto the body of your article and then forget about it. Write several versions of your headline, choose the best one, then write the body of your article and then go back and revise the headline if necessary.
Here are some examples of article headlines that I in saw in SA that aren’t helping to attract readers. I apologise if any of the examples below happen to be yours..
- “Gout home remedies”
- “How to study”
- “Social media niches”
- "Today’s job market”
“Gout home remedies”
- 5 Gout home remedies you need to know about
- 3 Gout home remedies which will banish your pain immediately
- 5 Gout home remedies doctors never discuss
- Simple gout home remedies that really work
- Choosing the best gout home remedies to cure your pain
The fact is there are thousands of articles being written every day and unless you have a very unusual niche you’re going to be competing against a lot of other writers. If you want to maximise the chances of people reading your articles. my advice is pay a little more attention to your article headlines.
Recent Comments
31
Great post Beverley and this is so true. Great example provided as well. Thank you,
Veronica
Thanks for the reminder!
1. Write several versions of your headline
2. choose the best one
3. then write the body of your article
4. then go back and revise the headline if necessary.
Great post Bis, I immediately went to SA to check my articles and I think I have done a decent job some could be tweaked a bit. Headlines are sometimes overlooked when racing ahead to get the article written but stopping and thinking a bit will reap more rewards.
Thank you. No one writes great headlines all the time, but I think it's best just to keep it in mind particularly if you're not getting as many readers as you'd hoped.
Great points Beverly. I am guilty of this at times, and it is easy to forget to spend that 8 cents wisely. :)
Thanks Shawn. I'm guilty as well and I look back at some of my early ones and cringe. A learning curve for us all
Nice post Beverly I think when we start to write an article, we look this over not realizing how important it really is. If you don't have a catchy descriptive headline people won't even bother reading your article.
No they really won't. I do believe a lot of the writers are losing readers because of poor headlines - myself included.
Thanks Bev, we can all do with rethinking this area, instead of just putting down a title and writing. I usually write the title, the content and then when I am happy with the content see if the title is anywhere near the content or is attractive. Most often it is not so I then re-write the title, sometimes completely,
Regards
Hudson
Thanks for the reminder. Sometimes, after writing so many articles, I get bored with myself and forget that I'm writing with hopes of people actually reading them!
Another thing worth doing is creating titles totally opposite of the article message, and then quickly introducing reader to the real topic in the beginning of the article.
It might be something as;
(TITLE) 'Tomatoes Can Cause Death'
(ARTICLE) ...Yes they can, but only if you eat them with cyanide. Otherwise, they're one of the healthiest vegetables in the world.
This example is a bit silly, but you can get the point. :)
Thanks for this. t's certainly another technique to use as you say, but I'd advise people not to overuse it.
Yea can get peoples attention but will put people off if finding an article not relating to what the want to find. Use with caution!
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Thank you for the information!
No problem. Hope it's useful