Galaxy Ninja

Whipping up, compelling, powerful titles is among the most important, and sometimes the most time consuming, part of the writing process. Most people on the internet are busy scanning through vast amounts of information, you've got one chance and very little time to stand out and earn a click. I've read girzilliions of ways to boost your title crafting game, and they're all helpful stylistically. But for the sake our time and sanity, lets take a look at the real meat of the issue - no matter the style, most really successful, powerful titles do two things: 1. Capture attention 2. Promise more information Yes, I know it's simple. But if you're targeting an audience searching for fulfillment through information, these two points are the essential essence of what your title should accomplish. If you've been staring at your title for two days muttering to yourself and changing it over and over again to make it just right, save yourself some time and focus on making sure your title fulfills these two points as well as possible. Lets look at an example. If we're writing an article illustrating a recent study about the main factors contributing to early mortality, it would be perfectly reasonable to call it " Study about the main factors of early mortality." But that doesn't sound nearly interesting enough even though it promises some information that could be useful. So lets jazz it up using the old "numbered list" title trick which is very popular right now and is commonly promoted as a highly effective technique. People just can’t seem to stop themselves from clicking on something that says “10 things you need to know about blah” or “5 great ways to blah.” So we decide to call it:

"Top ten ways to avoid dying early."

That's definitely more eye catching, and already does a pretty good job at promising more information… which numbered lists tend to do, since they automatically and pretty specifically promise relevant information. But what if we take it another step by putting more focus on capturing attention and making our promised information seem more important with something like this...

"Worried about dying early? Top 10 ways to make sure you don't bite the big one before your time is up."

It’s morbid, but this one DEFINITELY grabs attention and promises more information. In fact, it actually has nothing to do with offering a number list! We could completely remover the list from our title and still do a great job with something like:

“Worried about dying early? Find out the mistakes most people make that could lead to an early death.”

I'm sure all you ninjas out there can do way a better job and we'd love to hear your stories and tips, but for our purposes part--Done and Done. I guarantee you that our fictitious study would be read way more than it's lonely brethren. All you’ve got to do is remember to capture attention and promise more information. But wait! the title story takes another twist with something called "Hot Buttons"… To Be Continued.

Filed under: Blogging by Joey