Jan 07 2009
How to Drive Readers Away From Your Content
I’ll give you three articles to read:
Article 1: The DVD Recorder Buying Guide
Article 2: Top DVD Recorder Shopping Mistakes
Article 3: The 5 Top DVD Recorder Shopping Mistakes You’ll Make If You Don’t Read This Guide
Which article will you read first? I know which you’ll choose.
A mistake content creators make is coming up with a title that just tells what the content is about, like the first article.
A title must be able to generate a response from the reader. What’s in it for him?
Article 3 has upped the stakes for the reader. If he’s in the market to buy a DVD recorder, he would surely read it because if he doesn’t, he may make a may make a costly mistake when buying a DVD recorder.
Your content title- I don’t have to tell you this – is the most important part of the content before the content itself is read.
If your title suggests something bizarre, something extraordinary, a danger, a threat, a hard-to-get benefit, an easy or quick way to do a difficult task, it’s bound to generate interest.
Article 1: Laptop Extended Warranties
Article 2: Laptop Extended Warranties: You May Be The Next Victim
Which article would readers go for? You guessed it right.
If you’re writing for the web, titles are important because a surfer could jump to a dozen sites within minutes as compared to when he’s reading a magazine, for instance.
Your content may be superb. But if your title isn’t enticing enough you’re going to lose the battle of attracting readers to your content.
So, how do you drive readers away from your content?
Easy.
Have a flaccid, lifeless title.
Great article. I need to work on writing better titles.
“Article 3: The 5 Top DVD Shopping Mistakes You’ll Make If You Don’t Read This Guide”
Is that long? How many characters are usually allowed?
What about:
“Five DVD Shopping Mistakes to Avoid”?
Roxie
http://recoveryrocks.today.com/
Hi Roxie,
You don’t have to follow hard and fast rules when it comes to web writing.
Actually, I wrote the long title as an illustration on how to create titles that will generate a response from readers.
The second title you suggested is acceptable.
If you’re in a competitive niche with many articles like yours, you would have to go out and create a title that appeals to the emotion of your readers.
I’ve written web articles with long titles and they have been accepted by editors. I guess the titles just made sense and drew readers.
Check out some of the long titles at:
http://www.edubook.com/author/kumara/
Great tip! Thanks!
Jen