This happened. And he won the case — $120,000 awarded to him from a judge because, as the judge explained, the wife, unbeknownst to the husband, had undergone over $100,000 worth of plastic surgery prior to meeting him, and so was deemed “deceptive”. I kid you not. Never mind that the child’s gene pool was 50% his (a paternity test was run and the husband was in fact found to be the biological father). Never mind that… oh, what the hell… this story is worthy of a glass of wine. Or a bottle.
Why, you wonder am I bringing it up here? A bit underhanded, you say, as much as the Enquirer worthy story really stinks of ickiness, it did get you to open the blog and read on, didn’t it? Heh, heh…
Point? Headlines sell copy. A good headline will compel you to read on. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but every now and again we need to be reminded of the great pull and importance of great content and even more important, great headlines, that draw you in and make it impossible not to click. Sad, true, that this particular story actually is true, but the lesson remains vital: if your headline isn’t urgent and irresistible it doesn’t matter how great your content is, because no one will see it.
So, a few take aways:
- A compelling, if not sensational headline is VITAL, if not somewhat sleazy. But vital never-the-less! Your job is to make it less sleazy. Good luck.
- A headline or blog subject which takes advantage of Google Trends, or Yahoo Trending Now will garner you a much higher ranking in the search engines, as people are searching for more info on trending topics.
- Incorporating these into a good quality blog post with great content is the stuff great blogs are made of. Yup, I said it…
Some headline guidelines that work:
- Use a sub headline: “The 5 biggest secrets to a great blog post; how to get them at hello” … it’s a specific clincher that seals the deal.
- Make it a “how to”: “How to Create Killer Headlines guaranteed to make people click to open.”
- Ask a relatable question: “Are you making these mistakes when writing your blog?” folks will identify, and want a solution.
- Use a testimonial to sell your content. Probably the most powerful incentive out there for someone to click into your site: “How I earned $12,000 in 1 day from following Suzen’s advice”. Woah.
- Announce a benefit: “Learn the 6 best kept secrets to creating a website that makes money while you sleep.” Best kept secrets sell. Note to self.
Let’s re-cap: look at the techniques at work in this blog post: Using a headline or topic that is trending on Google or Yahoo translates to a highly searched blog that will be indexed high just by virtue of association to a highly searched story. Linking to high ranking authority sites- great for SEO, hyper-linking to my other relevant blog posts- keeps people on the site with more opportunity to scroll around my site and see how they can work with me.
Point: give people an irresistible reason to click into your blog to draw attention to your content and make sure that your content keeps them there and you are well on the road to creating a valuable destination. Now that they’re there, what’s on your blog that will translate into sales?
