4 Tips for Attention Stopping Blog Post Titles
Here are 4 proven tips to make your blog post titles stand out and get people reading your articles.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash.com
How many blogs do you come across a day? And how many of those do you actually read? Most people surf by and don't notice a blog article because the title doesn’t stand out. And even though it’s just one line, it’s the most importance sentence in the whole blog!
It’s the one that convinces a reader to stop and read. Doesn’t it make sense to spend some time crafting a thoughtful blog post title that makes a reader stop and say “I need to know more!”
Here are four tips that we use on a regular basis to come up with blog post titles that get people to stop, click and read the articles (and leave a comment at the end: hint, hint):
Numbered lists. Hey, this is a numbered list! People love numbered lists. Why? They are easy to digest and they are easy to follow. They just work. When you tell people that they are getting 4 tips and you give them 4 tips, they know just what they are getting. But make sure you deliver on what you promise. Start your headline with the number and make follow up on the number of points in the post (just like we have have).
Use the thesaurus. We have thesaurus.com bookmarked and we use it every day and so should you, because why would you use great when we can say crackerjack? Everyone uses great—that’s average. And sure, even I use it sometimes, in my body copy. But when it comes to blog post titles, we would rather pull up thesaurus.com and pull out a crackerjack phase that will catch my readers’ attention and get them to click through to the rest of the article.
Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. As you can tell, I love to brainstorm. I get so many ideas out of these sessions. I write them down on those long sticky notes until I have about five or six pages worth and then I go through them. I take the best ideas, editing, pulling the best parts of some titles and mixing them up with others until I come up with the perfect headline.
Run it by someone else. Even if it’s just someone else in the office, fly the headline by them and see if it’s interesting enough to make them want to click on it. If you’re lucky enough to have other writers to bounce ideas off of, they will be more than happy to give their two cents worth (we’re writers, we believe our opinions are gold).
Writing a blog post title isn’t rocket science, but it does take some time and effort to come up with one that will get people to stop and read your work. What is the most creative and effective headline you’ve ever come up with? Please leave them us on comment on Twitter or Instagram.