No One is Reading Your Blog-But Wait, What If you…

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine

Yes, I know, I just used the problem-solution headline; often touted as a grabber headline. This is one of the things taught in writing headlines 101.  If you will notice, in my headline though, I veered just a tad…I didn’t exactly give a solution, I implied if you read further you would probably get the information.  Right?

For the most part we all write our blog post, giving little thought to the  title, unfortunately that’s the first thing a reader sees…the title. Therefore, if you don’t grab the reader with your title, or it doesn’t have a word in there that pertains to their need, odds are they won’t read it. All that wonderful information down the drain and the time spent writing it wasted.

Does this sound familiar? It should. The same goes for the title of a book. You have to spend time on the title of a book to get the reader’s attention.

So what are you to do, spend days on end dreaming up earth shattering titles? Well, you don’t have to go that far, but you do have to spend more time on the title.

So how do you come up with a title that will draw the reader’s attention? Spend time reading your content. What is it about? What do you want the reader to get from reading this blog? What problem would your information in this blog solve for your reader? List the answers to these questions and look them over. What is the list saying the problem is? There is part of your title there. Now the list you’ve written is telling you how your content would solve the problem. So what is the hook? On my title to this post, I said, “No one is reading your blog”…that is the problem.  The hook I used was a little unconventional, but what hook could I have used to get a reader to read the post? I could have given a solution, a how-to.

Try writing a post, read it, and write down what the post says is the problem. Then if you don’t see in the post the solution, then make a list of 4 or 5 things you could do to solve that problem. You then can choose from those the second part of your title.

The how to is always good to put in the title. Readers are always looking for ways to solve problems. All you need do is present them the solution. Tell them that in your title.

Happy Writing!