in The Writing Life 843 Words

How to Write Better Attention-Grabbing Blog Post Titles

A couple of months ago I found a free online headline improvement program. Have you noticed? The jury’s still out, though, as to how it’s working.

Funny thing is, “they” used to tell bloggers to never give a blog post a title containing more than five words. I’ve tried to follow that for years. Lo and behold, now we’re supposed to have seven- to 12-word titles. It’s hard to keep up with what’s acceptable. Who knew blogging would be so complicated and have so many rules?

This free program I’ve started using analyzes headlines and gives each one a numeric score. I’ve had some fun playing around with it and taking its “advice.” I don’t know that my higher-scoring blog post titles have attracted attention or not.

In fact, as my posts have turned more toward publicizing my writing and concentrating less on the art and craft of writing, my blog has lost some popularity. I continued to attract new followers at a slow but steady rate, but my posts are getting fewer “likes” from other bloggers.

My subtle change in direction was a decision I had to make. Was my purpose as a writer to attract the attention of other writers or was it to attract readers?

I hope to continue to attract the attention of other writers but, if I’m going to establish myself as a writer I must find and attract readers.

Headline Studio by Co-Schedule

This isn’t an ad for Headline Studio by Co-Schedule, and I’m getting no compensation for writing about the program in my blog. This is the program I’m using. It’s been a real eye opener.

The program analyzes the headlines or titles you enter and gives you a score from 0 to 100. Today’s blog post title rated a moderately good score of 67, whereas the blog post title I used on January 9, 2023 was my all-time high at 80.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Things taken into consideration in rating title include strength of words, number of characters, number of words, use of emotional words, and readability. The readability aspect is the one that troubles me enough. Some blog post titles I’ve created receive low scores because I used words that someone reading on a fifth-grade level would not understand. How sad is that?

Even sadder is the rating I got when I plugged in today’s blog post title. Read it again. Do you find it difficult to understand? The Headline Studio program gave me the following analysis for this title: “Your headline reads at a 10th grade or higher reading level, which may make it difficult for many readers to comprehend. Switch out the complex words in your headline to improve readability.”

To that, I say, “You must be kidding!” If you can’t understand the title, you probably wouldn’t be able to read my blog. It’s a sad commentary on the state of education.

#OnThisDay:  Operation Desert Storm Began in 1991

Since my last blog post

My book sales are going well on Amazon and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC. Here’s a photo I took one day of my book on the shelf with books by other local authors.

I took the picture the only day I visited the store and it wasn’t sold out! Notice that my book was displayed next to Teachers are Amazing: The ABCs of Teachers, by Tierney Fairchild.

Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 on the shelf at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC!

If you’re a teacher, know a teacher, or aspire to be a teacher, I recommend Tierney’s book to you. In addition to Second Look Books, her book is also available on Amazon. Tierney is a lifelong educator and is dedicated to the profession.

Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1, by Janet Morrison, next to Teachers are Amazing! The ABCs of Teachers, by Tierney Fairchild at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC!

I’ve been busy this week writing content for the “Home,” “Books,” and “History in Photographs” pages on my website that’s being redesigned. I continue to learn more technology. I created a folder on Google Drive to house the media kit for Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1. I know this sounds easy to many of you, but it was another milestone for me. I can’t wait to unveil the new website… soon!

I want to offer a free e-novelette to people who sign up for my email list when the new website goes live. My next hurdle is learning how to do that!

Until my next blog post

I hope you’re reading a good book. I’m reading The Shadow Box, by Louanne Rice for Rocky River Readers this month. I’ve also started reading Raven Black, by Ann Cleeves.

Thank you to each and every one of you for supporting me and my new local history book!

Remember the freezing people in Ukraine.

Janet

20 thoughts on “How to Write Better Attention-Grabbing Blog Post Titles”

  2. Well the title gripped me to read from among the hundreds of unread email alerts for blogs. 😀 Well done, Janet, for persevering with your craft to get it out to an audience. Blessings. And a happy New Year.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I think your titles are perfect Janet. I’ve always struggled to give names or titles to my works, whether they be songs, poems or paintings so I usually just gave them the first thought I had about creating them, while at other times names/titles came to my head first and then I would create accordingly. I am so glad to hear that your book is selling well on Amazon, I have not found it on Amazon.es but I am still looking. Best of luck with the rest of your projects, I am sure that with your due diligence and thoughtfulness they will be a smashing success! All the best!

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Thank you, Francis. Titles are a funny thing. When I was writing the local history articles for the newspaper, it would irritate me when the editor would sometimes change the titles of my articles. I still think what I called them was better than what he changed some of them to. LOL! It took his changes as criticisms, and that was silly. I’ll see what I can figure out on Amazon. My book is supposed to be available on Amazon.es. I remember Spain was on the list of countries in which it would to be available in, so I’ll have to look into it. Thank you for letting me know you’re running into a problem.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Yes, I recall writing…at times…for The Miami Herald and they always changed my titles. I think it is something inherent in all editors… I am sure the book is available here if they said it was I just don’t know how to search, but I will, more thoroughly now. Thank you and all the best.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. What really irritated me was when I’d submit a multi-part series and the editor would change the titles so much that it was impossible to recognize the articles as a series about the same event. I checked into Amazon again and Spain is one of the countries in which my book is supposed to be available. I’m sorry you’re having so much trouble finding it. I’ll keep trying to determine the problem on Amazon’s end. I feel sure it’s Amazon’s fault and not yours. All the best to you.

    Like

  13. Yes, that is certainly quite irritating indeed Janet. And thanks, but I will ask my wife to find it and get it. I’m sure she will. I’m terrible with those things but she’s not. I’ll ley you know rake good care and all the best.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I just like reading your blog regardless of how words in the title. I’ve been blogging for seven years and probably do things wrong all the time. But I love blogging but like you I need to concentrate on my books,

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Thank you, Barbara! What a lovely compliment! I do enjoy blogging, and I’ve made some friends around the world. I never would have “met” them if not for blogging.

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.