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The Importance of Creating Great and Creative Blog Titles

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Why the most clever blog titles may kill your blog’s readership.

In the world of copy writing, headlines make or break the ad. A great headline isn’t just important for advertising, a great headline can make or break a blog post as well.  There’s no doubt about it,

Great Blog Titles grab attention.

Great creative blog titles not only grab the attention of human readers, but the search engines as well.  However, clever blog titles, while they may capture attention, may not encourage your reader to click and read more.

Dharmesh Shah discovered this harsh truth when he wrote a guest post on Hubspot: Forget digg: Join Mixx Where You Can Still Become A Power User.

He reports on his home blog SEO 2.0 in his post Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media that he suspects that the wording of the headline played a significant factor in the failure of a GREAT article.

The headline is crucial, without a proper, intriguing, kick-ass headline the best content will fail.

What the heck is it about? Nobody knew and thus it failed even on Sphinn where otherwise it would have ruled the homepage. I was silly enough to submit it without changing the headline.

Basically the original title just does not give you a clue what the post is about and why anybody should care for it.

Remember, when you’re creating content for the largest publication in the world (the Internet), your audience isn’t seeing this article within a specified context. A blog title that generates a ton of clicks from your RSS subscribers may elicit a big YAWN from other sources such as Digg, Sphinn, Stumbleupon or even Google.

Creating great blog titles takes time.

Make sure that your blog title gives the uninformed reader a clue about what information the post contains. Sometimes the most clever blog title may be the worst thing you can slap onto your great blog post.

Want to learn more about creating a successful blog?  Pick up a copy of the 8 Week Power Blog Launch today.  It’s one of the many essential blogging tools we have to help beginning business bloggers learn from OTHER people’s mistakes.

Do You Twitter? Do You Need to Twitter?

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I forget when I first heard of Twitter, but I signed up and quickly lost interest.  With a 140 character limit, I could not IMAGINE why anyone would care about how I spent the mundane parts of my day.

Rewriting the htaccess file for yet another client as I trudge through the endless process of updating their WordPress installation to the most

Oops… no more room.  Maybe I’m just too chatty to use Twitter.

Most importantly, I couldn’t imagine getting anything of importance DONE if I tried to Twitter about it.

My closest Twitter moment was when the Space Shuttle had to be rerouted on it’s landing and passed over my house.  The sonic boom was incredible and once I’d met and talked with my neighbors about it, I went in and posted probably the only “relevant” Twitter post of my Twitter career.

Not only have I not been able to get “into” Twitter… I just haven’t been able to get inspired to “follow” anyone else’s Twitter.  I know that when I say, “I just don’t have time”… it usually means I can’t see any reason to do it.

There… I admitted it.  Twitter just doesn’t strike me as a productive use of my time.

I ignored Twitter and Twitter ignored me.  Then came the SXSW 2008 conference and top bloggers began Twittering about what was going on and suddenly, everyone wants to talk about Twitter.

I’m reminded of the scene from Zoolander:

Mugatu: SHUT UP! Enough already, Ballstein! Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look, for Christ’s sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They’re the same face! Doesn’t anybody notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!

My feelings exactly regarding Twitter.  Micro-blogging!  WTF?  Blogging restricted to 140 characters or less… WHY?  Please… someone… tell me… WHY?

When you promote your Twitter… Are you saying, “Hey, I’ve plenty of time to micro blog about nothing… follow me on Twitter.”

(HORROR!!! I just logged into my Twitter account and I have followers!!!  WTF?   I had to have my password emailed to me as a reminder because it’s been so long since I’ve used it!)

Thankfully, I’m not alone.  Mark posted “Twitter is Stupid” over at Courtney Tuttle’s Internet Marketing School.  Since he broke the ice, I don’t feel nearly so alone.  Mark writes:

A noteworthy blogger talks about how he loves twitter, but then he disclosed his traffic sources: Google – 42%. Twitter – 1.87%. I think that pretty much tells the story.

Go build some links.

Thank you Mark!!!

I truly thought I was the only one…. I truly thought maybe someone had been slipping crazy pills into my morning coffee.

As for the limited number of Twitter followers… sorry to disappoint you with the lack of updates in my life.  Rewriting htaccess files just isn’t that glamorous.

Blogs are Blogs…and success doesn’t matter what platform you’re using…. right?

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Blogs are blogs… that’s what you’d think.  WordPress, Typepad, Blogger blogs or even the free WordPress.com blogs… they’re all the same… right? That’s exactly what I used to think but over the past two years, I’ve seen evidence to the contrary.

For example, I had one client who launched a blog on a VERY popular free blogging site on my recommendation.

The plan was to use the free blog as “bait” for her sales site.  The plan was to capture targeted reader’s attention and those readers who were interested would click through to the frequent references to her sales website.

She blogged faithfully five times a week for several months yet when I ran the log files on her sales site, we didn’t see a single visitor come from her free blog to the sales site. In other words, over a 6-9 month period not a single person who visited her blog and went on to visit her web site.

I probably need to add here that I wasn’t using a free “stats” counter to track this or even the free “stats” programs available for free.  I was using ClickTracks to analyze her log files.

Sure, my client didn’t have any $$$$ invested in development, but she was investing a significant amount of time and effort in her blogging efforts. (She’s a WONDERFUL writer, by the way!)

During this time, I launched quite a few wordpress self hosted blogs for other clients and the testimonials from those clients were outstanding.

It just didn’t make sense.

These people weren’t blogging as faithfully as the client with the free blog nor were they as well “branded” and tightly targeted as she had been with her free blog yet they were seeing growth in their blogs.  There was increased traffic with the self hosted blogs (something we couldn’t track with the free blog) but most measurably, when you typed the other blogs into Google, the blogs came up in the search. That was NOT the case when it came to the free blog.

Because of what I had seen, I advised my client to launch a self hosted WordPress blog. (I’m a boot strapping entrepreneur’s best friend and hate to recommend spending money they don’t have to spend.)

Her WordPress blog was hosted on it’s own hosting account with a unique domain name pointing to the WordPress software installation. Her new blog acts as a “free standing” web site.

I then installed the necessary plug ins to “pump up” performance and she went to work blogging on the new site with the same enthusiasm she was on the free blog.  She put a notice up on her free blog account that her blog was “moving” but we didn’t port the content over to the new blog.

Within 6 weeks of launching the self hosted WordPress blog, we began seeing traffic from her new blog coming to her HTML “storefront” web site.  That traffic started as a trickle and is now a reliable flow.

Thanks to this hard working client, and a few that aren’t quite so enthusiastic when it comes to their blogs…. I’ve developed a real confidence in recommending that small business owners make the investment to launch a self hosted WordPress blog.

So these days, when I get an email asking me how to create an “alive and vibrant” blog presence, the first step I suggest is to launch a self hosted WordPress blog. It’s been my experience that free blogs just don’t get the attention they deserve or the traction for long term growth.

WordPress 2.5: Fix for the “unable to upload files” blues

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I love WordPress… really I do. WordPress blogs are great for so many reasons which I’ve covered before here. I’ve got clients who can barely use email who are creating posts on WordPress blogs that are getting GREAT SERPS.

WordPress is DEFINITELY the technically challenged person’s dream application.

Installing WordPress is easy.   Using Fantastico, it’s positively simple.  The devil is in the details.

For example, when WordPress 2.5 is running on a security minded hosting platform… well, let’s just say allowing WordPress 2.5 to upload images or video is NOT viewed as a desired activity.

In order to work around this, you have to rewrite the htaccess file. It’s not a biggie and while I was in there, I found some great suggestions on how to rewrite the htaccess file to keep the “bad bots” out.

With that said, it only takes a misplaced character to screw up your ENTIRE website when you’re messing with your htaccess files. Mistakes were made…. but no clients were injured in the process. <grin>

Here’s a bit of the code that I found on the WordPress.org message boards which fixed the 2.5 image upload file error. Add this to your htaccess file and VIOLA… WordPress 2.5 uploads files, images and videos.

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

As for my clients… they are ecstatic that this is my job and not theirs.

Unfortunately, as WordPress becomes even more powerful and more popular, it’s becoming less accessible for the technologically challenged.

Blogs are better than traditional static websites because…

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You may have heard the “buzz” about blogs. However, what may not be immediately clear is WHY blogs are better than traditional web sites, especially if you’re looking at a blog as a potential marketing tool for your business.

  • What is a blog?
  • How is a blog different from a static or regular web site?
  • Are there times when you’d be better off WITHOUT a blog?

As for What is a Blog…. blogs are just another type of website. They’re as diverse in look and content as “regular” websites. Chances are that you’ve visited blogs and didn’t even know that it was a blog.. This web site is an example of a blog and this is an example of a blog post.

Blog posts are simply short (or not so short in my case) articles which are easily posted to the web site.

A blog is really just a CMS (Content Management System). The most recent articles are listed first, in reverse chronological order.

Blogs are MUCH, MUCH, MUCH easier to use and maintain for “regular” people than a traditional website. Heck, blogs are much, much, much easier to use and maintain for “geeks” as well! In addition to being easier to use… blogs allow visitors to interact with the blog owner. Visitors can leave comments and express their opinions via comments on the blog. Other blog owners can reference content on other blogs and in the case of WordPress blogs, you can see those incoming links. WordPress will even create trackbacks for you! (Trackbacks are also known as “reciprocal links”…. except you don’t have to beg, borrow and steal them. The other blog just has to approve it and VIOLA! LINKAGE!)

While blogs are great, and WordPress is the best of the bets…. there are times when ‘Yes, Virginia… tis far nobler to have a static web site. As a general rule, if you’re making a Minor Sale, then your business would be better served with a traditional web site. What is a Minor Sale? According to Rackham in his book Spin Selling , your business is making Minor Sales if:

  • There is a single decision-maker
  • The buyer’s financial or emotional investment is low or insignificant
  • The purchase does not warrant the time/energy necessary to research alternatives
  • There is little interaction between you and the customer
  • The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are inconsequential or insignificant.

Sound like what you’re selling? Then skip the blog and hire a web developer. YOU my friend are the lucky owner of a business which is engaged in making Minor Sales!

On the other hand, blogs are simply communication tools which means they are really the web presence of choice for the business that is engaged in making Major Sales. Your business is making Major Sales if:

  • There is more than one decision-maker
  • The buyer’s financial and/or emotional investment is significant
  • The purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives
  • There is the potential for a long-term relationship between you and/or your business and the customer.
  • The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high.

Sound like the kind of sale YOUR business is making? Well, congratulations because of the nature of your business YOUR potential customers need a LOT of information before they make a buying decision. This is important. It requires time, thought and research. A buyer has to have a certain level of trust established before they make the leap and complete the Major Sale.

Lots of information…. TONS of information… no such thing as too much information. The more check marks you can make beside the factors listed above, the more trust you have to build BEFORE the sale.

THAT is the biggest reason for a blog. You need to provide TONS of information… some of it over and over again… you need to educate your customer…. they want to know more… and a blog is a great way to deliver that information to your potential customers.