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1 AMAZINGLY Successful Blogging Tip!

by Niall Devitt on February 11th, 2010
24 Comments



Ok! So I got your attention, right?

Yes, you guessed it! the HEADLINE is without doubt the single most important piece of any blog post that you create….

That’s why you should give it lots and lots of attention and come up with one, that works really well and grabs the potential reader as soon as he or she sees it.

The funny thing however is that we (me included) are often guilty of spending a lots of time researching and constructing a post – but only investing a few minutes (or sometimes even seconds) coming up with the headline. Are you guilty?.. I know I am.

With just a little effort and some additional time, it’s definitely an area where most business bloggers could improve significantly.

Here are some super resources to help you craft incredible headlines:

How to Write Magnetic Headlines

The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill

How to Write Compelling Social News Headlines

How The Huffington Post uses real-time testing to write better headlines

And these are some recent examples of headlines that grabbed my attention here on Bloggertone:

MR. Topsy Turvy’s Job Rant

Blog, blog, blah, blah – bland, bland?

Oops – Where Did The Money Go!

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Is Anybody Listening?

Now over to you!

Do you agree that headlines are really important?

How much time do you spend on headlines?

And have you come across any great examples of headlines at work?

Pic: seobook



Category: Blogging, Social media Marketing

Tags: , , , , ,

The Author: Niall Devitt

Niall Devitt is a doer, not a talker when it comes to social media. Niall works with businesses and organisations on how to create and implement social strategies that get real business results. His background in sales has taught him to ensure that any learning around social media was based on results, rather than theories. In a very short space of time, Niall has co-founded and grown tweakyourbiz.com to become Ireland’s largest and most successful business blogging network. He has founded and grown Social Media Ireland to become Ireland’s largest social media focused business community. He is community manager for Bizsugar.com, a leading international B2B social media and an adviser to the Social Media Today group of websites. He has managed to do this while continuing to get involved with some of Ireland’s most exciting social campaigns to date http://tweakyourbiz.com

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  • Anonymous

    Hi Kelvin,

    Great point to bring up which brings up a little mentioned point in relation to “Values”. While a person may have 5-6 key values, at times, those values may come into conflict. For example, if we take the recent soccer debacle, the organising body had declared their value of “Fair Play” but hadn’t mentioned their value of “Commercialism”, which came into spectacular conflict during the recent qualifiers, resulting in invoking little used regulations during the middle of a campaign and being branded “unfair”.

    So, not only is it important for a leader to understand their values, they also need to be aware of how they rank those values and which one is most important. Then, they need to keep looking up every so often and identifying potential conflicts so that those conflicts can be clearly marked and managed accordingly, which, I think, dovetails with your point.

    This stuff isn’t easy, is it?

  • Anonymous

    Thanks Irial – and no it’s certainly not easy.

    I think your example above is a very good analogy for ‘stress’ and it’s effect on individuals.
    When we come under stress ( and many leadership situations are stressful ! ) our natural inclination is to revert to type and some our more ‘aspirational’ values can really be tested.

    In order to manage this I think it is important for people not only to have reflected on their values as you describe, but also be more self aware about what their ‘stress’ trigger points are, so that they can recognise when they are occurring and ‘readjust’ before it’s too late – make sense?

  • Anonymous

    Hi Kelvin,

    It makes perfect sense and the key message in all of this is that leaders need to have a conscious awareness of themselves.

    Cheers,
    Irial

  • http://www.channelship.ie/blog/ fred

    Good post Niall. Thanks for sharing those examples.
    I do agree, the tile is the most important thing. Also, the title tags that you enter on your post are the most important pieces of information for search engines.
    When it comes to great titles I strongly recommend Seth Godin’s blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
    Read it everyday and makes my day…

  • http://www.codegaconsulting.com/ Una Coleman

    You’re right Niall. And the trick is not to make it so sensational that it either disappoints or puts people off – it’s an art!

  • http://blog.myprojecttracker.com Barney Austen

    100% correct Niall (taking on board the point Una makes about not over-sensationalising!). They need to be relevant but snappy/attention grabbing otherwise it’s just more noise in an already over-crowded space. A useful reminder. I am generally not spending enough time on the title!

  • http://twitter.com/kwroisin Roisin Bell

    Is that true Fred? The tags attached to a blog post are important for google pickups? I had looked into that and thought they just linked to other posts on similar topics within the blog. How important are they do you think? Should I go back and tag all my posts or is it too late?!! Thanks.

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    @Fred, thanks for the heads up and yes Seth’s blog is gold.@Una, you are right of course, getting the balance right can sometimes be tricky. @Barney, trust me, I’m as guilty as any in that regard :)

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  • http://www.channelship.ie/ Fred

    Hi Roisin, I actually meant “Title tag” which is what the search engines read. If you have a WordPress blog, you can install a plugin called “All-in-one-SEO” which lets you enter this information easily. As for the regular tags, you are right, is more for internal purposes although I understand that they can get indexed too depending on your blogs settings. In a nutshell, get All in one SEO installed, and for the regular tags, if you have spare time go for it but don’t panic :)

  • Anonymous

    Very true Niall.

    A creative catchy header is critical in drawing people in to read a post. This doesn’t always have to be extreme or daring – just a bit of thought. Barney/Una rightly point this out. Catchy headlines are a waste of energy unless you can engage readers and keep them. This means investing your time on the content of the post is essential too. By the way what many bloggers miss out on is the visual layout on the post.

    Blogging is no different than CV writing or tweeting with an associated link. Or what about Linkedin Profiles – how many people have “click and come see who I am” headers?

    P

  • http://www.m4bmarketing.com Susan Oakes

    This is a good reminder Niall and one I know I do not spend enough time on. One thing I have started to do is look at posts that have done well versus others and review the headlines of each. Interesting results so far.

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    @Paul thanks for that! You make a insightful contribution when you say that Blogging is no different than CV writing, tweeting or Linkedin when it comes to great headlines. Thanks!
    @Susan, thanks! that sounds like a fascinating exercise and worth the effort. It would make a really great blog post??

  • http://twitter.com/aharbourne Andrew Harbourne-Tho

    Twitter: Great training for headline writing. Thanks Niall.

  • http://www.m4bmarketing.com Susan Oakes

    Hi Niall,

    The results could be a blog post. I had not thought of doing that.

  • http://www.seefincoaching.com/blog Elaine Rogers

    Well – just about to put on my crazy-headline cap for next week :)
    great post btw

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Thanks Andrew, Excellent point!

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    lol, thanks Elaine. Looking forward to it :)

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Susan, please let me know if you do :)

  • http://www.m4bmarketing.com Susan Oakes

    I will Niall

  • Anonymous

    One of my favourite resources for learning better blogging tips is CopyBlogger (www.copyblogger.com) They have fabulous titles that just make you want to read the post. I keep working at my titles so this is a bit of an art, I’d say.

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Elli, I agree, it’s a great resource! “How to Write Magnetic Headlines” links to a series of headline articles from CopyBlogger. Thanks for sharing.

  • http://twitter.com/drofsocialmedia Brian Prenderville

    lol, going by the attention my last post ” I don’t care where you tweet you twat” is getting I would have to agree. I also think that Title’s have become so much more important as our lives become so much more intertwined with social media.

    In a world where so much noise exists it is my contention that we have become faster at processing information, making decisions and sifting through an incredible amount of information where our brains quickly discard anything that it thinks we may not be interested in in pursuit of something we may.

  • Patrick Lane

    Excellent Paddy, the Revenue are supposed to amend PAYE taxpayers’ liability where they find that the standard credits have not been applied properly. However, what a lot of people forget to do is to make claims for those credits on your list that only crystalise at the end of the year. SO the motto is always file your return, it may be worth a lot of money to you.

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