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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

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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A 12-Step Strategy to Fit Your Blog into the Social Web

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How Does a Blog Fit into All of This?

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Once upon a blogosphere, people on the web connected and talked through text, audio, and video, linking from blog to blog. That linking made a community of people who were related by content and conversations on those same blogs.

Then about 4 years ago, the blogosphere got interested in social media tools. Microblogs and social networks were new ways to reach out, connect, and talk. The blogosphere was evolving …

  1. As the blogosphere grew up, some members stood out. They were fluent, proficient, had abilities as practitioners and teachers. Their subscriber lists grew faster. Their voices were heard first and sounded louder. People started looking up to them. Smaller groups formed around what they said.
  2. As the blogosphere grew out, some members built new tools, new sites, and new communities. The businesses offered new things to do, new places to meet, to ways to interact. People looked out for others who even more like themselves. We had new choices. The larger community split off into more like-minded groups.

The effect has been that the community has diversified into smaller groups and spread out. The conversation is bigger, but it’s no longer concentrated on our blogs. The new sites and communities, the speed, mobility, and breadth of the tools attracted even more people to the check out this social web community.

Some of these folks found that they could be a part without having a blog.

Millions of people are spending their time on the social sites. They will out their many profiles with a to Facebook or LinkedIn. The commitment is lower and requires less editing.

How does a blog fit into all of this?
Having a blog was a having a home in that community — a place people could visit, get to know you, engage with you and your ideas.

It still does.

In fact, a blog is even more foundational. Have you noticed how noisy the Internet is? When people visit our blogs they can come in from the huge noise of the larger conversation stream. A blog can offer a respite. They get room to breathe and a chance to share a larger thought. But it’s time to step back, think strategically, and adapt to how people act now. Habits have changed.

According to PostRank study from 2007 to 2009 which followed 1000 of the most engaging feeds, they found:

  • 30% more people are engaging in the social web
  • less than 50% of that engagement is happening on blogs … it’s moved to social sites.
  • trackbacks linking blogs have dropped from 19% to 3%
  • Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook and other social sites have gone up from less than 1% to over 29%
  • Blog posts have a longer life-span. In 2007, 98% of the engagement occurred in the first HOUR. In 2009, only 36% of the engagement takes place in the first DAY.

Unless you’ve just started blogging, you’ve probably noticed some of that — fewer visitors than last year, how the conversation has moved away from the comment box to the social sites. But you might have missed how quickly more people are coming or that our post are lasting longer and reaching farther.

That calls for a serious new strategy as the Blogosphere evolves into the Social Web.

A 12-Step Strategy to Fit Your Blog into the Social Web

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Your blog numbers might be down, but the engagement in what you do and think could be growing exponentially. The bloggers and blogs that do well offer outstanding and meaningful content that is in tune with where folks engage naturally and easy to read and share with their friends.

Here are 12 Steps to consider to refit your blog to the Social Web.

  1. Mark your place … Find the tools you need to measure where your blog is today. Some include: Google Analytics, Woopra, Quantcast.com, Alexa.com, Technorati.com PostRankAnalytics,and Compete.com Identify and track information so that you have a historical marker.
  2. Do Reconnaissance … Use the tools and study conditions to find where your main audience spends their time. Look beyond Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Find the niches. Learn their habits. Starter tools include: Google Alerts, Search.twitter.com, addictomatic.com, and topsy.com Internet’s Largest Twitter Tools Resource List.
  3. Watch, Listen, and Make Alliances … Be constantly aware of what other people are doing. Ask for help. Turn great conversations into content. Invite savvy bloggers to write guest posts on topics they know more about.
  4. Clarify Your Identity / Message … Who are you and what do you talk about? In this fast-paced trust economy, people want to instantly who you are. Design and content need to say who you are. Does your design look like everyone else’s? Content is the main context of your web identity. It establishes your authority and your expertise. Google loves new content to index. People love new ideas.
  5. Define a Consistent Workable Plan … Identify 4-8 key niche topics you’ll write about and 4-8 types of blog posts you favor. You might make a blank monthly grid with the types across the top and the topics down the side. Even a loose plan — one that allows you to respond to new ideas and unexpected events in your area of expertise — will make the blogging work more predictable to you and more accessible to your readers.
  6. Use Best Practices … Save time by brainstorming several ideas first and later writing several drafts at one time. Then, you’ll have “almost ready” blog posts captured when you need them. Link out, cite, and promote others at least 6 times more than you promote your own work. Understand when sharing your work is passing on value and when it’s being a pain.
  7. Test Constantly … When and where will you publish? How often? Which days? Which time of day works for your audience? Should it be more or less than one a day?
  8. Mind the Details … Write outstanding headlines over outstanding content. Take more time than ever before making sure your ideas are sound and attractive. Target them to your niche. Loyal fans will see, read, and share.
  9. Network and Connect … Plan time at social sites and commenting on other blogs. Divide that time between people who do what you do and your ideal customers. Start conversations online and off. Be interested and interesting. Look for reasons to offer a hand.
  10. Innovate New Forms … Try a “Twitter trackback.” When you reply to a reader’s comment, take the link back to him or her. A quick tweet saying, @ReaderX I answered your great comment [link] promotes the reader as well as your reply.
  11. Feed the Content Community … Write content and answer questions wherever your readers are. Engage people where they are. Don’t hide all of your ideas and expertise on your blog. As Google starts indexing more social sites, this can only work better and better.
  12. Invite People Home … Constantly add resources and repackage content to readers to explore your archives again. When it’s appropriate, invite people back to see other things you’ve written or to make sure they don’t miss something they’ve said they need.

Having a blog is even more important now that the blogosphere is evolving into the Social Web. Blogs still offer the place where we can “go deep,” expressing thoughts with clarity and conviction, where we can talk and engage under our own terms of service. A power strategy can leverage your blog to grow your web presence, your business, and your brand.

What other strategies are you using to fit your blog into the Social Web?

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

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Great Headlines on the Web Always Win … Except When They Don't

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Got Traffic? Want Traffic?
Why Do the Clickers Come?

If you’ve been studying How to Get Literally Everyone’s Attention on the Internet, you probably know that headlines count.

An attention-grabbing headline is everything. Whether it is something completely original and novel, ultra-specific and geared towards a niche, or just incredibly compelling, good headlines on the Web always win.

They always win, except when they don’t.

A great headline will get traffic and attention, but what sticks? What turns a click into a subscriber? Strong businesses are built on strong relationships. What transforms a clicker into someone who hangs around?

It starts with with the reason the clickers came. People come to a website for information, entertainment, and communication / engagement. When they click through on that headline they’re looking for one or more of those three.

Our greatest achievement in building a Web site is helping a person achieve his or her goal. During our research our biggest discovery proved to be that navigation and content work best when they are wed tightly together. “It seems that you can t really separate content and navigation” says Jarod Spool, “without losing something important in the process.” How to make your Web site fast and usable

If folks who click find something that delivers on that promise in that headline they stay and possibly return. If not, they feel thwarted and leave. Here are five things you can do to make it more likely they get what they came for.

Five Ways to Deliver to the Clickers Who Follow a Headline to Your Blog …

  1. Deliver what your headline promises.
  2. Deliver it in short paragraphs using subheads surrounded by lots of white space so that people have room to think and breathe.
  3. Deliver it without making folks jump over ads or through hoops to get to the prize that the headline promises.
  4. Deliver it by recognizing the people who take time to comment.
  5. Deliver it by making it easy for folks to stay..

The most important thing is deliver — do what we say we’re going to do.

It’s not the click that doesn’t come that’s a loss. It’s the click that comes to find that we’re not what we suggested we would be. A great headline followed by something less doesn’t win. It doesn’t even finish.

Great headline, lame blog post — you’ve been there. What’s your response when you end up on one of those?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

The Secret to a Successful and Outstanding Blog

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How to Blog Series

Once upon a time in the real world, I started a blog. . . .

I thought it was going to be a writer’s project. I’ve been wrong before, plenty of times, but I don’t think I was ever quite so spectacularly off. I thought a blog would offer me a place to practice my writing and maybe allow me a chance to offer a thought. I thought a blog was a flat surface for communication. That’s not what I found.

I found the secret to a successful blog is more, and more touching than that.

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Readers come for the information in a blog post. There’s no question of that. Readers read what writers write and writers write to teach, inform, entertain, mystify, motivate, and inspire. Every word we write, every idea we construct to share, moves from our minds to others on a fine silver thread of digital thought.

Still the thoughts alone would be sad and lonely without a heart to back them up.

heart box for heart

It’s the heart and the passion that fuel the words, make the magnetic. It’s the heart that plays the beat that resonates to bring readers back. Even when our hearts find themselves in distant places, we still recognize our humanity and our relatedness. When we write with our heads and hearts together, people notice.

Heads engaged, hearts beating, a blog has power.

collage for meaning of life

A truly successful and outstanding blog also has meaning. Somehow, in some way to each individual, a successful and outstanding blog makes a difference by adding something of value to being one who visits. You might call that spirit. You might call that direction or focus. I call that soul.

The soul of a blog is carried by the person who writes it and the folks who come to read it too.

That’s what I found, a successful and outstanding blog is head, heart, and soul. It’s all of what makes us human and worth paying attention to. Bring it who you are and the folks you meet will help you become more.

I know. It happened to me. It happens again every day.

Be irresistible
Thank you to everyone who has made this our successful blog.

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Drive a High Performance Blog and Watch Your Numbers Go Up

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How to Blog Series

High Performance Blogging

Most folks are blogging for some sort of visibility — making money makes visibility even more important. Like a great car, a great blog works best on the right fuel, and the right fuel with the right driver can take a great blog to performance numbers that hit the top.

We have to use all we are and all our blog can be to hit peak performance. Still it’s worth it for the community and the response.

The Engine

The content is the engine. High performance content

  • is factual and accurate.
  • is original and adding value.
  • is well-expressed and well-structured.
  • is timeless and linkable.

Outstanding content is so engaging that we’re drawn into the experience or the story. We forget that we’re reading and move along from thought to thought.

The Handling

High performance design and presentation is

  • is simple and elegant
  • fast and intuitive in navigation.
  • enhances the written communication.
  • offers white space and visuals to support the text.

Top-notch presentation doesn’t call attention to itself. It underpins the content with a feeling that helps to define the experience.

The Driver

The high performance blogger makes the blog a beauty to watch. A high performance blogger

  • has a presence and a voice that readers respond to.
  • gets jazzed by readers’ ideas and what they say
  • isn’t afraid of the blog or a crash now and then
  • knows that performance is all about the fans

A high performance blog is fun to watch and even more fun to be part of. Make a high performance blog and watch your numbers go up! Remember to keep it and yourself tuned and fueled regularly.

In which areas is yours already a high performance blog?

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