Article marketing can be a great way to drive traffic to your site. One of the best article directories, EzineArticles, get hundreds of thousands of visitors a day. EzineArticles allows you to submit your articles to their directory, for free! But getting the EzineArticle users to take a look at your article is a completely different story, so how should you achieve that? With a compelling article headline of course.
Making sure that your headline stands out is important. Your headline is competing for views with everyone else, so you should also make sure to include your keyword phrase in the headline, to make it more effective. After all, the article headline is your first opportunity to catch the eye of any visitor, searching for topics relevant to your article.
The “In Your Face” title
Like the name suggests, this title confronts the reader and compels them to see what you have to say. A title that follows this sort of style might go like “Your Blog Will Fail Unless You Do These 5 Things”.
The “Shock And Awe” title
This type of title tries to get your visitor to react, by triggering some emotion from of them. If you achieve this, they will be compelled to read your article. One way of ensuring that is to make sure the title provokes either a positive or negative emotion, preferable a strong one. Both ways are effective.
The “Do You Know What I Know” title
This title gets the attention of the reader by asking a question and going after their curiosity. Here is a good example of this title type, “Do You Know The Top 3 Methods To Monetize Your Blog That The Experts Would Never Reveal?”. That’s an article most blog owners would like to read.
Effective article titles are really important if you want to get people to read your articles. All you have to do is spend a few more minutes to come up with better article title and I guarantee you will start to see immediate results.
But when you’re thinking of headlines for your blog posts, there are some things you should try to avoid, such as:
- Don’t be original
- Don’t blend in
- Don’t be clever
- Don’t get desperate
- Don’t ignore your readers
- Don’t ignore your peers
- Don’t ignore social media
- Don’t ignore your personal style
- Don’t ask for opinions
- Don’t settle
- Don’t sweat the failures
- Don’t ask too much
Find out why in Jonathan Morrow’s Don’t Do These 12 Things When Writing Headlines.
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What’s your favorite way of coming up with great headline?
I still have never submitted anything to an article directory, but I need to get to work on something and give it my best shot. These are all very good points, and I will probably come back here before I write my next title! I have been guilty of writing blog post titles merely by guessing what someone would type into Google. 🙂
.-= Christie´s last blog ..When is it worth outsourcing something? =-.
Me too – I also mostly put some keywords into the title if I can make it sound reasonable at the same time.
COmin g up with titles for my posts is probably the most exciting thing about the entire post to me, I use a little bit of each tactic in my posts.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..How Important are Your Passwords =-.
I think I’m going to have to bookmark this! Titles are my biggest challenge on my site.
I’m glad you said for writing articles, because I was thinking that I don’t want to always put this much effort into my blog titles, especially as often as I’m writing. Articles can be interesting, though, because sometimes, it’s hard NOT to be somewhat creative and turn a phrase.
After all, it’s worked for the NY Post all these years. 🙂
.-= Mitch´s last blog ..Lots Of Blather On Twitter =-.
Pro bloggers would probably say it’s a good idea to apply the same principles to your blog posts titles – but sometimes we just want to get our articles out there and not focus too much on the title, just make sure it includes a few important keywords 🙂
Your headline tip here is interesting. However, no matter how enticing a headline is, quality of content will decide a blogs traffic. 🙂
Absolutely! But as you know, without a good headline, people won’t find your quality content 🙂
Thanks for visiting my site, by the way!
I have never submitted any article to any article directory.
I guess it will be helpful to our blog as well. Controversy creates money and brings traffic.lol
.-= Ricky´s last blog ..Top 10 All-in-one Online Messenger Services =-.
Hello Klaus,
It’s interesting you should mention those tips, as I am exactly like them. I am what I am through my own writing, as I express my experiences and they balance out those tips. I wonder if there are sites, specific to that of our own where we can submit our entries to? I don’t confine myself to write articles in my blog – as that is not what it’s about. Would be a good idea to submit what I write to other sites though, specific to my own experiences and attract people with similiar understandings to it. Do you know whether such places exist?
.-= Ana´s last blog ..Dream as your light = live bright =-.
I’m not exactly sure about sites to submit your kind of articles to, based on your niche – but you can try to take a look at point 2, 3 and 4 in this post: https://techpatio.com/2009/marketing/10-blog-traffic-tips
Doh, I read that incorrectly! With excitement for reading your posts I get carried away. In essence I am the opposite of the ‘don’t’s that should say. 🙂
.-= Ana´s last blog ..Dream as your light = live bright =-.
This is very important article. Though it is normally said “Content is king”, but what attracts readers is the catchy title. Thanks for this post
.-= John Samuel´s last blog ..Enhance Twitter on Web with Power Twitter =-.
I have seen many Bloggers working hard to submit article and approving at Ezine articles to get back link. But i think article submitted on this top Article sites is best way to come in the eyes of readers.
.-= Yoga business´s last blog ..Yoga Marketing Case Study – Printed Brochure =-.
Coming up with the title is the hardest part of making an article for me as I build the body around the title. thanks for your tips, this will surely help.
Michael
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..All About the V Thing =-.