If you read blogs like me, you’ll subscribe to them via RSS, place them in your favourite reader (Mine happens to be RSSOwl – What an Amazing App) and then scan through them when you feel like catching up. Although, when your blog’s feed is plunked into my pile of RSS feeds giving me A LOT of content, it gets harder and harder for me to read your posts doesn’t it?
Here are some personal points that I thought of to help you craft more ‘clickable’ titles if you will, ultimately making your posts read more and enjoyed by the maximum number of people.
5 Ways To Make Your Post Title Stand Out In A RSS Reader:
- ALL CAPTITAL LETTERS – The RSS reader will replicate your post title in the feed reader as standard text.. So with some simple CSS Styling, you can make your post use all capital letters, but make them easier to read.. see an article about using the “small-caps” approach.
- Ask a question in a post title – A great example would be Blogstorm’s “Would you like sitelinks for the keyword “loans”?” in the feed reader. Although it was pure linkbait, it still got my click and made me wonder how it was possible.
- Longer titles to attract the persons attention as they will wonder why it is so long – If you have 5 small titles around one with a larger title, you’ll likely be drawn to the larger one as it has more words and letters.
- Linkbait your readers – Not recommended for newer blogs that have fewer readers.. you don’t want to piss off your small audience this early in the game. Although the bigger blogs usually employ this technique, I don’t think I’ll be using it.
- Research Your Competition – By this I mean two things.. The first is going to Digg.com or other social networking websites and seeing what titles make the “front page”. You can learn an awful lot by people that are successful. The second point is subscribing to blogs in your similar niche, seeing how they craft their titles, you never know when you might be able to use some of their ideas in the future.
“If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking risks, and that means you’re not going anywhere. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more changes to learn and win.” – John W. Holt
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- How To Gain R.S.S Subscribers To Your RSS Feed Or Blog
- Picture This!
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7 Comments
Not a big fan of the CAPS, I gotta say. In my email (I don’t use a reader), caps means spam trying to get attention. Since I encourage email subscribers over feed readers, I don’t want them getting the same feeling.
I use #2 as often as possible. This makes my call to action at the end of the post stronger as a “follow up” to the title itself.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..What Criteria Factors Into Your Link Love/Round-Up Posts?
Some great tips. As my subscriber numbers grows, I’m starting to get more and more rss readers, and so getting them to come to the site is really important. I agree with dennis all caps can get annoying, but a question is a great idea. Things like “Want more blog traffic?” will always cause click throughs. Great suggestions.
Jonathan Muller’s last blog post..Strategies for Affiliate Marketing
Great post, but it would take some work to mess with titles in the RSS reader. Longer and Shorter titles have their own pros/cons…and it’s not just in the RSS reader.
-Mike
Great Tips , im a noobie blogger . Will read your other posts too !!
techrar.com’s last blog post..NOVA – Next generation OS for mobile
Letters in all caps can be bothersome. I won’t recommend it. I prefer having the first letter of the word being capitalized.
Money Best Info’s last blog post..Agency Officer Featured on Oprah Winfrey Show
I believe capital letters are always annoying because more likely will tend to ignore it…
Still, your best bet is to write on an interesting topic to you readers as well as yourself. I am more inclined to read a post on a subject I care about.
I also love that John Holt quote.