It is a question posed all too often by bloggers; how do you come up with a great headline that reels in your readers? And what works better generally, longer or shorter headlines? Of course, word play and the number of words you use definitely has a role to play but it’s not all a numbers game, so stop thinking of it in terms of subtracting or adding any words. There is no magic elixir or numerical formula by which you will be able to come up with a sublime headline that has everyone applauding your genius. The answer, surprisingly, is rather simple if you were to bear with me.

Coming up with a headline that works is very straightforward. Ask yourself this; how much would you read as a headline? Humans have an attention span that is at its peak only for a short period of time, and beyond that interest rapidly wanes away. Normally, in terms of reading a headline it extends to a few seconds. It shouldn’t drone on and it should be like a good potato chip; crisp and delicately to the point. Try this for size:

“The six mistakes ignorant investors make when it comes to approaching investment and what you can do to avoid it.”

Now while this headline sums up the spirit of the article perfectly it’s a bit long-winded to say the least. Perhaps you might have even lost your train of thought somewhere along the middle of it all! Brevity is the soul of knowledge, and that soul has been sold out and whored out several times over in the course of that headline. I doubt you can even remember what that headline was exactly at this point in time (don’t peek, we know you want to). That headline is a mish-mash of too much happening all at once. Peruse instead these great book titles:

“Don’t stand too close to a naked man”

“Where the Wild Things Are”

“By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”

“Kinky Friedman’s Guide To Texas Etiquette, Or How To Get To Heaven Or Hell Without Going Through Dallas-Fort Worth”

You would have not noticed a certain succinctness with each of these titles and memorability to each of them. The last one is far longer than the rest, but still memorable. “But it’s long!” you say and you are correct, but it is the punctuation that saves it. Punctuation is in fact the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandpa!” and “Let’s eat Grandpa!” How to punctuate something is entirely up to you, but it can make a sentence much easier or much more sensible to read because of the mental pause it affords. Let that be a lesson to you.

Blogging should, even at the worst of times, be about having a bit of fun with words. I’m not saying you should be a wordsmith or someone spinning a web of words no one can unravel. Far from it, it’s more about just going back to basics and having fun or being playful. Think of it this way; when you were a kid you only did stuff you enjoyed. Why did all of that change? The message is still the same, to try and enjoy yourself because you’d be surprised to see just how much your writing will improve once you start to experiment with throwing in a little bit of joy in there.

Some will look at it as being frivolous and unnecessary, but some will relish the change in tone. Just as it is in the real world, you can’t please everyone all of the time but you can most certainly at least make sure that you are having a good time while you’re at it. This idea struck me while I was peering in at a class full of kindergarten kids busy with some art classes creating what I would at best (or worst) call modern art. Most of those kids were less busy trying to create a work of perfection and more intent on just having a whale of a time and slathering the walls (and occasionally the paper in front of them) with all sorts of colors while doodling all kinds of unrecognizable shapes.

Amazingly, even at such a tender age, some of them displayed a remarkable capacity for intricacy and quality in their work and looking back I realize that those were the ones that were having the most fun while they were at it. Over time, as I observed this intrepid bunch of kids more and more, I noticed subtle variations and distinct improvements in the way these kids used a brush or even their fingers to paint an image and the more they tried something new, the more evolved their art became over time.

And then it struck with the force of a thousand Elephants stampeding through the Savannah; how is it any different for blogging?

As you pick up and drop styles of writing and experiment, you will stumble upon some that stick and work for you while there will be those you discard and this is true for you and your readers. Your personal experiments could range from satirical styling to sardonic ranting to even using a third person writing style. There are no rules other than those that you impose on yourself, but there is one overriding rule; it has to be impactful for you and your readers, otherwise where’s the fun in trying something new?

Everyone wants to be a successful blogger but not all can do it quite well. It took a lot of hard work to reach the stage where I am now and here I am sharing some of my secrets with you. The list is really long and this article would never end if I start to write them all. I am writing about the ones that I think are most useful. Follow them all and you will surely become a great blogger. Remember that success doesn’t come overnight; it takes a lot of hard work and perseverance.

1. Write a lot

   This is really important because when you write over a period of time, you get to know all the mistakes that you have done in the past. Your writing too gets better after a period of time. You should also put plenty of posts in your blog as you will get more juice from the search engines. If there is plenty of content pouring in, readers will visit your blog more frequently to read your write ups.

2. Be concise

   

   This is acknowledged by all successful bloggers. People visit your blog simply because they wish to learn something new. No one reads blogs just for the blabber or fluff. Practice writing over a period of time and develop a skill where in you catch people’s attention with the first line itself. The reader should be left begging for more.

3. Be analytical

   Study the readers and know what they want to read online. Your articles should give what the readers want. I spent lots of time on the Internet studying where people came from, what search terms, what search engines, what sites, etc. I even studied about where the people come from. See what kind of articles people are looking for and write accordingly. Headlines must be really attractive because it is the first thing that the reader notices. It should make the person go through the entire article. Then just tailor the content to suit the research that you have done. Don’t forget to put appropriate images for the posts.

4. Be consistent and focused

   The mantra here is first choose a topic and then stick to it. You should write consistently on the subject that you have chosen. I have observed this amongst big bloggers. They do write off line articles occasionally but eventually it relates to the overall theme. This is a bit hard to achieve but it is not impossible.

5. Plan ahead

   Successful bloggers first make a master plan and then stick to it. They are open to constructive criticism or feedback but they always have a vision in their mind. Stick to the plans and don’t get derailed.

Blogging in itself is an art form, and it is often said that life often imitates art. As it is with art, so it is with life; what you get is what you give returned. But the beauty (or banality) of life is that while art itself does not need validation or acceptance, for it is what it is, life is not without its demands. There is a point beyond which you just cannot go solo, social interaction is a must for you to succeed and while you might not be seeking validation in any form at all, you do need to interact at your best with the world. Put your best foot forward and all that.

And so, as it is with mortals, we make mistakes. I too have erred on several occasions, and noticing these errors and learning from them is what is needed when you will inevitably mess things up. Not every art work is a masterpiece and not everyone gets things in their lives right the first time out. Here are a list of the cardinal mistakes I have made and hope you make a mental note of it somewhere in the recesses of your mind so that you too do not follow the same mistake-laden path as I.

I let my URL expire

Mind you, I didn’t let this happen on purpose.  It was a lapse which no one wanted to take the blame for, and I most certainly didn’t. When I changed hosts mid-way through the year, I assumed (in my eyes, correctly) that I would get a reminder before the expiry of the contract in question. After all, I get them for my other bills, why not this one? It takes a simple e-mail at the very least. So imagine my surprise when the contract lapsed and I was not aware of this, with both hosting services later playing a game of blame-pong with me in the middle. It was dubbed a case of caveat emptor and I had learnt my lesson. Trust no one (or companies) with an IQ that is room temperature. Get a longer contract if you are truly committed and just pray like hell someone has the common sense to remind you when it’s near expiry.

I got into an online fight

Everyone has an opinion, that’s the beauty of it and the internet, with its conduciveness to anonymity, is the perfect playground for anyone to be bold and come out and say stuff they would never dream of saying in a social setting. You know how it goes. You say something innocuous, someone gets offended, someone calls the other person a derogatory word of some sort and before you know it, wham! World War III is upon us.

In my defence, I was not the aggressor. No, honestly, I wasn’t. It’s just that you cannot expect a human being to be a docile cow. Your views, while inoffensive, will rub someone the wrong way in some remote corner of the globe. And the internet is perfect for getting your otherwise inoffensive opinion to that special someone waiting for you at the other end of a computer.

I attempted to write a post on grammar

The vast, electronic seas of the internet are awash with people with more time on their hands than can be measured by any system man has devised and god forbid you try to correct someone’s grammar. Only do so if your own grounding in grammar is rock solid, like mine. At least I thought mine was, until I wrote a post on typos with two typos. No biggie, right? Wrong! All the grammar Nazis came crawling out of the woodwork with their jibes and taunts, pointing out the delicious irony of it all (I suspect they would have found my salty tears delicious too). It was a free for all, and the comments thread even had a few internet memes and cats laughing at me. Humbled, I offered up an apology, but it had another typo present in it. It was a dark day with no hope in it, and I hope you experience nothing like it.

I ticked off a fellow blogger

Meet the internet. It’s a wonderful place to sound off and generally piss people off more than you might normally and just as it is normally in life, someone’s ego and big mouth cheeses you off so much you wish you could shove a keyboard down their pie hole. I know I did. It’s at times like that you should rein in that anger and channel it in other productive ways. Neighbour’s got a pesky dog that doesn’t stop barking? No problem, dust off that shotgun. Kids meet a new bully at school? No problem, fire the bully in question so badly that he’s a whimpering, simpering pile of snot and tears. Just do not, under any circumstances get into an online fight. Want reasons why you shouldn’t? Look two points up, you reader with a goldfish’s memory, you. No, I refuse to fight with you on why I feel you’re a Goldfish while you say you’re not.

Be a quitter…not.

It’s an irresistible urge…you just get a feeling to leave it all altogether and walk away from your site. Here’s a piece of advice. Don’t do that. Instead, just keep at it one word at a time, piecing together posts you might feel a bit cumbersome and bothersome. The thing is once you’ve stopped contributing to a blog it is as good as dead in the water, it needs constant food for thought to keep it happy and kicking at all times. At a later point, if you feel that you want to blog again (as you inevitably will, it’s a vicious cycle) you will have to start all over again from scratch and it will be a painful process re-acquiring your readership and building a blog up again. Keep things interesting, or as interesting as you can, and keep at it.

Interact

Man is a social animal, and he hunts people down while craving constant communication. Talk to your readers, or at least the ones who pop in every now and again to say hi or even lambast you. It’s critical you establish a connection or a rapport with your readers because they are the life-blood of your blog whether you like it or not (no, it’s not your witty jokes. No one visits you for that. In fact, they’re not even that witty). Talk, poke, tweet, chirp, warble or do whatever else it is you want to…just don’t lose that connect no matter what.

Do not post jokes

Never ever post jokes online. At least the kind that I do, anyhow. You’re not meant to be the second coming of Benny Hill. If you are like me, you are meant to write about effective story-telling and how to get better at it, or how to get published and stuff like that. Taking things in a jocular vein comes nowhere into the picture, even if you feel so strait-jacketed on some days that you just absolutely have to joke and make a mockery of things. Doing things like I do and giving a fake name to the telemarketer or shopping assistant is only funny at a personal level. Don’t try and work your humorous charms online, it can be the very antithesis of all that you want.

In summation

I wish you don’t make the mistakes I did and that these help you, and that somehow your blogging learning curve is reduced exponentially because of me in some small way because everyone, everywhere has something to learn. And what better way to disseminate information than through a blog? It’s got all the thrill of public speaking and none of the sweaty palms it induces. Or maybe it just does that to me, I don’t know.