A lesson on choosing blog titles
Bad choices in titles
I posted an article yesterday with the title that read, "Cancer and me". The first paragraph went on explain that back in 2002 I had been diagnosed with cancer, but had cured it with herbs and minerals. I posted this with links on Facebook so all my friends and followers could see it and hopefully be drawn to my site, "https://healthhopeandherbs.com". WOW did I mess up, I got a totally different reaction than I had expected. I suddenly was bombarded by messages of prayer and encouraged not to give up hope.
RETHINKING THINGS
I made personal replies to most all of the folks who wrote me, but the notes just keep pouring in. It is wonderful to be cared for, but I had to fix this some way. So today I wrote a short post that was titled, "Cancer free for 16 years". I thanked everyone for their love and concern and apologized for my poor choice of words while once again trying to explain my journey from cancer to health.
What I learned...
- First, most folks never read anything but the title on Facebook. I have to admit that I should have realized that sooner. That's how I scroll through Facebook. I don't have time to read everyone's posts and scroll quickly through to see if anything or anyone I know catches my interest. I however will stop and read the whole post if it interests me enough to stop.
- Second, most folks will not go past the first line of a post, no matter how much time you spend crafting the rest of the article/post.
- Third, I just have to be "craftier", or "wiser" in my choice of words. I have always tried to craft titles that will grab peoples attention, but this title grabbed it in the wrong way.
I hope this will encourage you to be a little "Craftier" in choosing the most important part of your blog post.
Russ Lawson
Recent Comments
6
I was just reading an article about the fact that the most important things in any blog post is the title, first sentence, first paragraph and sub heads for the very reason you have written about Russ Makes perfect sense and after reading your post I'll definitely be focusing on these elements when I write posts.
~Mark
Good to see you Russ, it is that sneaking suspicion that we all have that may be one in ten may read, the content. Google favours long posts in a world of scan readers.
As writer's we all need to look at how we craft our titles and words. A timely reminder many thanks.
Russ, great post. Once I texted Wife left....to my sister. Meant it for our son (she was to pick him up). Sis called and got on my case for whatever reas0n Maryee left me.
r/Sanders
Yep, we all write the wrong thing to the wrong folks sometime.... I have to work on being more careful...
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Hi Russ, that was very interesting, I didn't realize people only scan headings. I will keep this in mind, thanks for the 'heads up'
Cheer Jae ☼