Weekly Challenge 2--It Starts at the Top: Writing Great Headlines

[Michele Martin]

A blog post headline is what first captures a reader's attention, especially if they're reading your post in a feed reader. You can have the best post in the world, but without a good headline, people may blow right past your post.

Headlines are something I really struggle with. I want them to be descriptive and informative, but at the same I want them to be catchy. Sometimes I spend more time editing my headlines than I do my posts. Even when I do, they're still bad.

The challenge this week, then, is to focus on headlines. It's actually a two-parter and you can do one or both parts.

1. Check out these recent posts on headlines that grab attention and try to incorporate them into your headlines this week:

How Problogger Inadvertently Gave Me 359 Headline Ideas

Warning: Use These 5 Surefire Headline Formats at Your Own Risk

How to Write Headlines Even a Corpse Would Read

10 Headline Formulas That Work Like Magic

2. As you're reading through your feeds this week, note which headlines get your attention and make you read further. Note your favorite examples here in the forum and what it is you liked about them. As you go through the process, also consider if there are particular types of headlines that capture your attention. Do you like questions? What about headlines that include numbers or facts? Wherever you notice some kind of pattern or theme to the headlines you see, mention it here. I'm also curious if there are patterns related to particular niches in the blogosphere--are edubloggers attracted to particular types of headlines, for example?

Bonus Activity: If you come across any good headline resources or blog posts during the week, drop a link for them here.

Another bonus activity comes from Robin--scroll down to her post here and try to write some "poetic" headlines.

By the end of the week, we should have a nice collection of ideas about headlines that we can use to improve our own headline-writing.

Have fun. I know that this will definitely be a challenge for me!

[Carter-Ann]

Good challence. I'm really lazy with my headlines. I'm looking forward to seeing what we come up with!

[Al Upton]

Hi Everyone (Happy Birthday and thanks Michelle:)
Well last week 'getting organised' was basically 'getting to our blogs' - far too much happening! Today the miniLegends each created a clustr map on their individual blogs - a very engaged class ... now they are devising ways to connect with as many countries as possible. Not the emphasis I really wanted but it is self driven and motivating them like crazy. To give some added purpose we've created a 'Where are you and what are you doing?' page (plus a link) on our front page. Please check it out http://alupton.edublogs.org/ This will also be extended to the kids own blogs - yet to be negotiated. Thanks also to those who have left comments on the kids blogs ... it has only been drawn to my attention today that comments are being held for moderation by default - thanks Frances. The minis will need to check their emails and let me know of any blog related "incoming" - the moderation feature will be 'tomorrows' lesson (next week) ... as will 'Writing Great Headlines' - just imagine the shared learning involved in those three words for eight and nine year olds. Very exciting! Cheers, Al

[Michele Martin]

Thanks, Al.

I have to tell you that I love what you're doing with the kids, particularly in terms of having them take such active roles in setting the learning agenda. What you're doing is exactly what I wish happened in US schools, but doesn't seem to at all. You're giving them such a great foundation for the future in terms of being excited about learning and having the skills to develop their own learning plans and paths. So great!

[Cammy Bean]

This is a great exercise....I've been *thinking* about it but not so sure how well I'm executing it.

I've taken the tip to write my post first and then go back and write the headline. I'm an impulsive blogger, however. I typically don't agonize too long over my posts -- I crank 'em out and get 'em up. But perhaps a few minutes extra on headlines will be worth it.

[Robin]

I may be in the minority here, but I dislike most of the problogger type headlines. I'm thinking of headlines such as:

*113 Must Read Blogging Tips
*Designing Banner Ads that Get Clicked!

These headlines seem to valorize:

1) authority
2) numbers
3) improvement.

Maybe it's just pure orneriness on my part, but these headlines bother me. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of making an assertion that I know things that others don't know. That seems to be the underlying message of many of the problogger headlines. None of my blogs are really in the "business" of giving advice. Also I find that I am often disappointed by the promises of those headlines.

The mode of my blogs tends to be either storytelling or sharing art/poems/stories that I have found interesting. I'm a literary type so I gravitate toward all things literary. Here's an exercise that is somewhat common in poetry workshops. Study this list of titles to poems by Wallace Stevens:

Anecdote of the Jar
Bantams in Pine-woods
Continual Conversation With A Silent Man
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
Domination Of Black
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
Gray Room
Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly
Madame la Fleurie
Metaphors of a Magnifico
Nomad Exquisite
Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself
Peter Quince at the Clavier
Poem Written at Morning
Six Significant Landscapes
Sunday Morning
Tattoo
The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Okay, here's a challenge to add to the challenge, if that's okay with you, Michele?

First, make a list of 5-10 titles/headlines in the style of Wallace Stevens.
Second, try creating your headline first and writing your post "to it."

And post your links so that we can see how it's worked for you!
Robin

[Cammy Bean]

I just love this! Thanks, Robin :)

[Sue Waters]

Well my first thought with this week's challenge is that I am OK with writing blog headlines. But maybe I am wrong.

SO here is a selection of my headlines and you can tell me if I am wrong!
1. Hitting the Bull’s Eye
2. Why Does Technorati Mock Me?
3. Why Didn’t I install Google Analytics Sooner?
4. Will Mobiles Be THE Tool of The Future?
5. STOP, LOOK, THINK - What Is Material Really Going To Look Like on A...
6. I Didn’t Start The Fire……

Sue

[Christine Martell]

Sue,
I think you are right....you do have awesome headlines. I'll have to get back to that 'challenge Sue' project of mine.

[Sue Waters]

ROFL Christine

Waiting for the "Challenge Sue Project" maybe you start a discussion thread with that title and get the community to come up with the hardest challenge LOL.

Thanks for feedback on the headlines - glad I have got the

for this week!

[Talia Carbis]

Sue, I thought it might be of interest to you that I read through your headlines that the ones that compulsed me to click more then any others was "Why does technorati mock me" and "I didn't start the fire".

Something I use to do before I was a more 'professional' blogger (i.e. when I blogged on myspace!) was write headlines taht grabbed people's attention that were totally irrelevant.
Things like 'rainbow Bright', and 'Tin Tin!'. People would get a little annoyed at me!

But I did have a method in my madness- it's just that no one knew or understood. I wrote my post about... whatever, and then the headline was just about something that I was thinking about.... something I liked at that particular time. So I may have been surfing for pictures of the care bears at the same time as I wrote that as a title.... etc.

I suppose I should have really just put a thing at the bottom like Mandy does...

[Sue Waters]

Thanks sunshinetalia

Take it from me Technorati almost did not get a Christmas card this year, and I have to say that "I didn't start the fire...:" is one of my favourite titles because it really relates to what the story is about.

Sue

[Sue Waters]

Hi Karlana
That is exactly how I now write all my posts. I put a rough heading at the top of the post and then change the title after I have finished writing. Although there was this one time, I forgot to change it, and then pressed publish. OOPs went back in changed it but it does keep the original title for the web address.

Sue