Successful Blog

4 Headline Types that Grab Attention Immediately

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By Terez Howard

How to blog series
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One Blogging Secret That Everyone’s Telling You

I have something to tell you. You’ve heard it before. You know it’s beneficial to every blog. The great bloggers write about this regularly and practice what they preach.

Attention-grabbing headlines. There, I said it. Secret’s out. or it’s been out for years.

4 Headline Types that Grab Attention Immediately

When I worked for the newspaper, my editor told us that our headlines had to tell our readers something. Sounds simple enough, right? It is pretty straightforward.

I wrote the following story back in 2005: “Katrina victims in Chester tell their story of survival.” I could have written “Hurricane story.” My now five-year-old headline told readers what to expect from my story and why they would want to read it. My second, obviously bland headline example doesn’t tell you anything. It sounds like a fictional piece on a hurricane’s journey through an area.

Your headline needs a voice. While it doesn’t have to be a summary of your entire blog post, it should give your readers a taste of what to expect.

What kinds of headlines should you write? Here are four:

Raise a question

You can specifically ask a question, but your headline does not have to be a question. Rather, readers will ask themselves a question and want to know the answer.

For instance, my headline for today: “One Blogging Secret That Everyone’s Telling You.” What secret? Why’s it a secret if everyone’s telling me? Who’s telling me? These are the questions my headline raises, and I provide the answers in my blog.

So when you write a headline that raises a question, be sure to provide a satisfactory, thorough answer to your audience.

Include a list

“101 Blogging Topics That Will Keep Readers Coming Back In Hundreds”

Once again, readers know what to expect, that when they click on your post, they will see a numbered list, from 1 to 101. Why do lists make wonderful headlines? Bloggers will tell you how the search engines love numbers and how numbers are memorable to readers. These points are true, but not my focus.

From a blogger’s standpoint, lists are easy to write. As a writer, a list organizes my thoughts for me from 1 to whatever. From a reader’s standpoint, lists are easy to read. You expect a comprehensive, systematic piece of information.

Make a how to

People love a good how to. I love how-to’s. I followed a how to count calories and lose weight story and shed 10 pounds.

Tell your readers exactly what they will be able to do if they follow your how to. A how to headline does not have to be so basic, though. It could be a “How to not…” or a how to do something metaphorically, like “How to pop eyes with your headlines.”

Be compelling – Make it urgent

What makes you want to click on a blog post? It piques your interest. With the three aforementioned types of headlines, each and every one should be compelling. It kills me that bloggers spend their time writing a well-researched, thoroughly engaging post and don’t give any time to the headline. It’s an afterthought.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write your headline last. That’s a fine idea and preferable to many bloggers. I tend to write my headline first and tweak it as I write make it fit the entire post. Do what works for you, just so you give time to your headline.

Your headline is your appetizer. It prepares your audience’s appetite to the main course. Does your headline induce hunger? Hey, sounds like a headline!

What do you do to write an attention-grabbing headline?

 

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Author’s Bio:
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas. You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

 

Thanks, Terez!
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Your Blog Is Your Stage, But Who’s In The Audience?

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By Terez Howard

You’ve rehearsed your lines. You’ve completed the finishing touches on your costume. The curtain rises, and you see an audience anticipating a five-star performance. Do you recognize the faces looking back at you?

Bloggers have a reason for blogging. They blog to share what’s going on in their personal and professional lives. They blog to promote their products or a service. They blog to express their opinions. Most often, bloggers write in the hopes of creating a reaction.

Who has a ticket to your show?

Here are some general groups of people that take a ticket to blogs:

  • Relatives
  • Friends
  • Potential customers
  • Returning customers
  • Business associates
  • Yourself (You write for you)

Have you chosen a group to write for? I don’t care who holds the ticket, as long as someone is reading what I write. Getting readers to follow your blog can be challenging, and in a state of desperation, you might say that you’d be satisfied with any human being capable of discerning the English reading your blog. If you want a follower to stay for the duration of the show, then not any Tom, Dick or Harry will do.

Look at it this way. You blog for a reason. Let’s say that you blog in the hopes that visitors will click on a link to buy your book on potty training boys under 2. You might be happy to see a comment from your grandmother’s Bingo partner or your son’s 10-year-old buddy. Yes, they might spread the word, but these people are not going to buy your book.

You don’t hand out tax advice or Xbox cheat codes on your potty training blog, even though that Bingo player would love to know how she can get more money back and that pre-teen wants to defeat Tomb Raider. You must stick to topic.

Know your audience

You must establish who your audience is and what they want. Returning to the previous example, you are writing to parents, and not just any parents. You specifically write for parents who have boys under the age of 2 and want to start potty training them.

You blog potty training tips that may or may not be included in your book, how to handle temper tantrums, spirited toddler boys, how to raise a happy toddler boy and throw in your personal stories. These parents will be interested in what you have to say and possibly interested in purchasing your book.

Notice that not all the topics I listed are directly related to potty training. They would, however, be subjects of interests to your audience.

Hone in on a specific group. In my example, I used parents of boys under the age of 2. One blogging professional markets to females ages 21 to 45 looking to start a small business. Another blogger writes to relatives on her mother’s side to post updates on annual family reunions. The better you know exactly who you’re writing for, the better chance you will have at retaining readers.

Sit in the front row of your show

Take a moment to get off the stage and sit yourself in one of those cushy theater chairs. Think about what your audience wants to take away from your blog. What would you want to know if you were them?

You’re audience will applaud your blog if it fills a need, satisfies a want or just pleases curiosity. Who knows? Your words could merit a standing ovation.

Who sits in your blog’s audience?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How To Be An Honest Blogger Without Being A Jerk

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Do You Like These Sandals?

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I ordered my daughter a new pair of Stride Rite sandals for the summer. We went to the store to pick them up, and I slipped an excited toddler (she loves fashion at the ripe age of 2) into a pair of brown and gold sandals.

“Do you like them?” I asked her, thinking I knew what her response would be.

My honest little Micah said, “No.”

To be honest or to be nice

What kind of blogger are you? Are you the honest blogger? You would have told me that you didn’t like those sandals point blank, like my daughter, without giving a care to the time, effort and money that went to making those sandals part of my kid’s wardrobe.On the other hand, do you consider yourself to be a nice blogger? You say what people want to hear. You would tell me that shiny footwear was the most adorable creation since ruffled dresses. You would also agree with the critic who hates the sandals. You want to be everybody’s friend.

There are pros and cons to each disposition.

If you’re always honest,

  • You get to be yourself, an easy assignment.
  • People will know exactly how you stand on an issue.
  • You could drum up business with your truthful outlook.
  • Your words might evoke anger, frustration or hurt feelings.
  • Your brutal honesty might scare people away from following you.
  • Your name could be destroyed if you come off as a jerk.
  • People will feel comfortable sharing their true colors. (Is this a pro or con? That depends on you).

If you’re always nice,

  • People will like you, and you always will have people to agree with you.
  • People will be drawn to your pleasant disposition.
  • You could create work for yourself with your kind demeanor.
  • You don’t get to always be yourself because you strictly want to be nice. It can be difficult to fake how you truly feel.
  • Readers might wonder what the deal is if they find you contradicting yourself for the sake of niceness.
  • People will wonder if you are human or an alien from “V” because you don’t show anger.

The solution: be both

Season your words with salt, the old adage goes. Be honest and be nice. It’s easy to express your opinion when you know the majority will agree with you. Perhaps your blog post reads, “Having a baby is a miracle.”What if a group will not like, possible hate, your opinion? It might be difficult to say, “A woman should never have an abortion.”

What do you do when you need to express yourself on a controversial topic?

  • Don’t use disrespectful speech, and mind your manners. That means you say how you feel without bashing the opposing party.
  • Back up your claims. Don’t make brazen remarks without listing your reasons why you feel the way you do. Your argument might be enough to make a person question his differing viewpoint if you give convincing evidence.
  • Be thorough. This goes along with the last point. Throw in some expert opinions and statistics to support your case.
  • Acknowledge the other side. Your post should include the opposing side’s perspective and why you disagree. This way, you say, “I’m willing to agree to disagree.”
  • Respond to feedback. Controversial posts get people talking, and that’s great. You should be sure to respond to feedback from people genuinely interested in the topic, whether they support you or disagree. Be careful with people only looking to argue, rather than discuss. You can choose to respond to the comment on the post, respond privately or ignore them completely.

Be specific

My daughter said she didn’t like the sandals. I later discovered she loved the sandals and didn’t like that they were a smidge too large for her.The most important way to be an honest, non-jerky blogger is to be specific when you write. Describe your opinion as thoroughly as possible. Make a series on your topic if you can’t fit it into one post.

Get out there and blog your heart out. It’s what people really want.

How do you manage to be an honest blogger without being a jerk?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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The Single Best Way To Build A Love For Blogging

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By Terez Howard

Love Is a Natural Thing

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I blog because I love to write.

That makes blogging as natural as breathing for people like me who enjoy feeling a computer keyboard underneath their fingertips. But even for bloggers having an affair with writing, blogging can become a chore. How?

A freelance writer who blogs for a business owner does not particularly relish the idea of writing about chicken coops week after week. A business tips blogger might find she has to include financial advice in some of her posts since finances are a top priority among many businesspeople when numbers are one of her worst enemies. Incorporating financial anything would be drudgery for me.

So what can a girl do to build a love for blogging?

Write what you know.

It’s not a secret. It’s not earth shattering. It’s the truth. You write about what you know. Take your life experiences and everyday happenings and regurgitate them on a blog post.

I’m not saying to give a play-by-play account of what you do during the day:

This morning, I woke up and made the bed. Then, I went into the bathroom to shower.

No. Don’t do that, and don’t do this:

After I got into the bathroom to take a shower, the toilet seat was up again! My husband still doesn’t know how to put the seat down. We argued for hours, and I left the house for the rest of the day. I might not go back.

The first example is boring. The second example is too personal. Strike a balance. Be entertaining enough and personal enough, while sharing helpful information. Like this:

After another marital disagreement (we all have them, right?), I considered what it would mean to the female population if our men actually followed our advice. So I asked myself, ‘How would I best respond to an unwanted suggestion?’ Presentation is everything.

Apply what you know

You must research your topic if you’re writing in foreign territory. Use experts and authorities for your sources. When appropriate, cite your these specialists as your sources. And remember, you are producing your own distinctive work, not a copy cat article.

Then comes the fun part. Make your blog your own. There are hundreds of blogs about cooking. I recently saw an ad about a woman who blogs about cooking and doesn’t cook. She writes super simple snack recipes. She is unique.

Your blog might not be so one-of-a-kind, but each post can stand on its own as original if you parallel what you know with what you write.

“But I don’t know anything.”

That’s just lazy. Either you are not thinking, or you are not working to know anything. Look around. Literally, look around. Go ahead.

I see a computer. I could blog about which computers offer programs that cater to writers. I see various piles of papers. I could blog about organizing these papers or why these piles are already organized. I see an enormous bookshelf. I could write a blog comparing the writings of my favorite author, Langston Hughes, with my own writing or get tips from this multi-talented writer.

Those ideas are the ones that are in front of my face. Walk through your house. Think about your family and friends and their interests. Recall your everyday activities to mind and apply them to your blog.

Maybe blogging isn’t love at first sight for you. Look at blogging through a mirrored lens to cultivate a love that could grow into a lifelong relationship.

What one thing about blogging could make you fall in love with it?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

— ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Do You Know Your Blog’s BIG IDEA?

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What’s Your Goal?

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Blogging is like paper and pencil, like an answering machine, like an email or text message to the world. It’s meant to carry information from a writer to a reader. It’s more than Twitter. It allows for a longer thought and a deeper conversation. And well, … the url sets up a certain expectation with readers and search engines that you might add more to it that will be useful and valuable at a future date.

A blog can be text, audio, video or the format can be mixed. Most important is that add value, reaches out, connects, and offers some sort of expertise, especially now that the social web is providing us with so many places to gather and discuss.

It takes a strategy for fitting a blog into all of this.

and it takes an idea …

What’s Your Big Idea

Whether we’re writing a single blog post, planning a calendar for a week or a month, or setting out to start a new blog, we have to know what we’re planning to communicate and the direction we want that communication to go.

Knowing your BIG IDEA makes every other decision about your blog easier.

Decide these two elements:

  • know your goal and message — what your blog is all about in 25 words or less. Filter that down to less than 6 or so words and you have a tagline.
  • name your audience of readers you want to reach — who wants to hear what you have to say?

Determine how to address both of the above with a great mind.

  • What quality content and questions can you bring?
  • What great thinking and value can you add to that?
  • What other quality thinkers and content producers can you preselect and promote?

Figure out how to weave your values in.

  • What passion drives you talk about this?
  • How will you let your humanity come through?
  • How will you celebrate and honor people who do good things in the areas you care about?

Your message, your audience, and how you’ll blend great thinking with great humanity together they add up to your BIG IDEA. The BIG IDEA shows itself in your blog’s design, your writing style, your frequency of updating, even the words you use to name parts of your blog. When a choice confronts you; just hold it up to your BIG IDEA to see if it belongs.

The blogger who fully thinks through a BIG Idea enjoys success, readership, and a community filled with engaging, relevant conversation.

Whether your blog is new or five years old, do you know your blog’s BIG Idea? Can you write it in just a few words?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

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How to blog series

140 Ch Can’t Say It All Intelligently from the Heart

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Every day I greet the Internet with my coffee and a clear purpose and I find lots of opportunity — information, ideas, and input — offering itself. Never a question about finding that.

If I’m not focused my head is filled with thoughts and energy sparking and flaring in directions that look something like this …

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Unfortunately without focus so much can stay dispersed in that beautiful, but disintegrating way. I can end up responding to and considering bits of data like swatting gnats. Not much progress is made in a world of randomness.

Twitter, in particular, offers ideas I can encounter and pass along, but if I do that, most of what I think vanishes into past thoughts considered and soon forgot as unconnected bits.

If we want folks to know us we also need longer conversations in stronger venues. Telephones help. Personal conversations at meetings are great. If only we could stretch and scale our resources to share that way. So we write.

It’s why I keep my blog. In fact, that fact makes me passionate about why I write every day. But it’s not just the connections that keep me writing.

7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

Writing is one way to share our thoughts with more folks more efficiently. Publishing makes the connection more natural and accessible. The words stay present and available through time for anyone who wants to access them. We get visibility and benefit others when we write, but we benefit ourselves as well. By recording our thoughts we make them more in so many ways.

  1. Writing gets us to clarify our thoughts. We have to find words to communicate ideas. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make them more concrete.
  2. Writing teaches how to see what we think. We have to find words to articulate what’s on our mind. We think the ideas through for ourselves. In that process we make our ideas more concrete, more transportable, and more memorable.
  3. Writing teaches us how words communicate meaning. Every time we write we choose the words we need to express a thought or idea. The more we practice the more we learn how to make choices that help people connect to what we mean.
  4. Writing helps us develop a voice that is natural and consistent, strong and confident. Even when we write for ourselves, we go back to read, listening to what we wrote. We question. We consider. We critique our choices.
  5. Writing teaches to manage our internal editor — to value our own thoughts and to be quiet until feedback is useful. Too often when we just think ideas we can shut them down before we’ve fully considered their possibilities. Trying to put them into words keeps us going to a longer process.
  6. Writing is an opportunity to share our expertise. Everything we write has an audience. Every time someone shares something that we write they add value to our ideas — when they change them and when they don’t.
  7. Writing makes us more thoughtful readers and responders. We bring the insights and appreciation of a writer to what we read. It gives us a venue to ask questions and solve problems with help from the world.

As efficient as Twitter is for conversation, it’s not enough for working out ideas. 140 characters can’t express a full-on deep thought. A soundbyte might get attention, but it doesn’t show depth of knowledge.

Writing is clear thinking made visible. — Bill Wheeler

 

I heard that quote a long time ago and I hold it close every day on the Internet. It keep as a reminder that writing raises my game.

We meet more people in print than we can ever possibly meet face to face. Many people will know our written voice as well as they know our names. Writing is a huge opportunity in a noisy world to teach what we know and to learn from the best of the people we meet.

What sort of thinking have you shared today?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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