April 13, 2010
5 Compelling Headline & Content Strategies to Drive Traffic
As much as journalists/bloggers/writers would like to believe that readers regard their prose as art that should be appreciated, valued, and revered, this is often not the case. In general, people are very busy and have time-consuming and significant responsibilities. This means that in the vast majority of situations, readers parse information as quickly as possible in order to find content that they deem relevant, interesting, and/or useful. As such, headlines must communicate that the associated content will be just that, relevant, interesting, and/or useful. Below are five practical, yet crucial, strategies for creating captivating content and headlines.
Many people will undoubtedly say that using a formula to dictate the nature of content is illogical and will result in a lower level of content quality. That may be correct in some contexts, however, using formulas will generally result in an increase of readers for all but the largest and most mainstream content sources. In particular, there are five types of content that readers will generally find relevant, interesting, and/or useful: (1) lists, (2) how-to’s, (3) secrets, (4) questions, and (5) rich media.
(1) Lists
Lists are particularly attractive to readers because there is an implicit promise that the list will be useful and that it will save readers time because they will be able to quickly learn a large amount of information on a specific subject. Example headline: 30 Free and Awesome Logo Design Tutorials.
(2) How-To’s
Similar to the implied promises of lists, how-to’s expressly promise readers that they will be able how to accomplish a particular task with little research required, thus saving the reader substantial time. Example headline: Make a Cheap Stylus for Your iPad.
(3) Secrets
Unlike the first two formulas, this formula doesn’t exclusively appeal to readers’ desires to save time; rather, it appeals to readers’ compulsions not to be left out. Example headline: 10 Awesome OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Probably Don’t Know.
(4) Questions
Many people are continually, but often unconsciously, evaluating the world around them concerning issues that range, in terms of importance, from trivial to life-altering. The use of questions to create headlines and content can often capitalize on this fact by making content specifically applicable to readers. Example headline: How Much Will My Metabolism Slow as I Age?
(5) Rich Media
If the headline alludes to something that cannot be conveyed via text, e.g. pictures, readers will often be more likely to click on the link because their interests have been piqued, but cannot be satisfied without further action. Example headline: Pictures of the 4th Generation iPhone, Exposed.
Although there are a number of media outlets that create headlines and content that are very captivating, if you have ever used Digg you know Smashing Magazine has it down to a science. In particular their posts have appeared on Digg’s front page at least 200 times. In order to do reproduce this success, they use a very specific formula to write headlines: number + adjective + content topic + message. For example: 20 Indispensable WordPress Themes for Designer.
The simple fact is, nearly any site can leverage these strategies to substantially increase its traffic, it just takes a little thought and an understanding of human nature to do so.
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