In the last article, I talked about the importance about using an informative headline to attract readers to your content. Although a title is a crucial element in keeping your visitors on your blog, you must create an attention grabbing “hook” to further interest the reader in what your article is about. Hence, the graphic above which signifies what this post is going to be about.

The Thinking Behind The Hook

Using an image after a headline attracts readers to an article like a moth is attracted to a flame. This technique works so well due to the massive amounts of media that have adopted this method in their articles for decades. Think of a newspaper – The front page has a large headline and then directly below it is a large image.

San Francisco Chronicle – 1945:

The Examiner – 1962:

The Arizona Republic – 2008:

Why does this work so well?

The human eye is drawn towards colour or complex shapes. It will try to figure out what the object is and the environment in which it is stationed in, all of this usually happening within hundreds of seconds of you first seeing it. By placing a relevant image after your headlines, you are replicating what has made newspapers (and print media in general) so successful in selling copies of their product.

There’s no new science here folks, just a simple technique that will retain visitors better than just a straight jump to a body of text.

Finding Pictures for your Headline “Hooks”

There are thousands of sites that have stock photos for you to use, free of charge. Almost every article on here has an image from Stock.xchng (The leading stock photography site).. I have never needed to go to any other source for my pictures.

Alternatively, you could visit these places for photos:

• Flickr
• Morguefile

Part 3 – The Opening Paragraph

Stay tuned as we take a look at what makes an opening paragraph so crucial to the success of your article.