How to Write a Good Blog Post Title

Whether you are into blogging, article writing or email marketing, writing a good title cannot be underestimated. No matter what the purpose of your write up is, writing a good title gets half the job done.


"Title", "headline" or "subject line"...whatever you call it, you must put as much thought into it as you put into writing your article. If you are a blogger, the fate of your blog post depends on the title to a great extent.

So let's consider the importance of a title to a blog post.

The Benefits of Writing a Good Title

• More Readers
• Site Credibility
• More Followers
• More Traffic
• Successful Blogging
  

Types and Styles

I regularly come across various emails and blog posts where the titles are overused cliches:

• For free traffic this works like crazy!
• Use Your Traffic to Make Money
• Some Good News!
• Don't Know How to Make Money?
• The #1 Secret Revealed!

Then there are titles that are soft and yet subtle:

• Your Membership
• You Would Love This

Some titles are ambiguous:

• Choose Now! This One or That One!
• Would You Do This to Your Blog?

Others are straight forward (like the title of this post):

• How to Write a Good Blog Post
• Learn to Blog in 3 Minutes

Some of the above mentioned titles are questions while others are exclamatory sentences. Regardless of the type, style and wording of the title, many of these titles are just irresistible, while others make you balk. However, If you are a writer, you must have resorted to these approaches at some time or the other.

So what is the secret (another cliche) of writing a good title?

A Good Title

A good title must have the following ingredients:



1) It must Grab Attention: The least a title must do is to attract the attention of the reader. This is the first step to getting your readers to read your blog post.










2) It must give the Gist: One look at the title, and it should tell the reader what your post is all about.

3) It must be Genuine: A title that seems promising, but slyly leads to a bunch of marketing waffles will immediately result in the reader hitting the "x" button.

4) It must portray Generosity: Your title must have an air of generosity. The reader must get a feeling that he or she is going to gain something. The blog post that follows must share some information and dispense some relevant knowledge that will be helpful to the reader.

5) It must give some Guarantee: A promising title will always make the reader stop over and read the entire article. You must offer solutions that guarantee results, and not just some hype.

The above mentioned guidelines are applicable not only to blog posts but also to email messages, articles, sales letters (let's not look down on marketers), and tweets.

None of us are born bloggers. We are all learning. I remember writing some crappy blog posts with some pathetic titles. We all have been there. However, in my opinion, even if your blog title has three out of the above five elements, you can consider the job well done.

Happy Blogging!

Cranking Out those Visitors! Twitter Popularity!

Twitter is no longer just a microblogging platform for friends to hang around online. It has become popular among corporate businesses and the entertainment industry as well. Corporates and celebrities are using Twitter to build their brand names and market values.

Gauging Twitter by its unique visitors, it has grown by 1,382 percent from February 2008 to February 2009, according to Nielsen. In comparison, Zimbio has grown by 240 percent and Facebook has grown by 228 percent during the same period. The report also reveals that the biggest chunk of visitors come from the age group of 35-49, out of which 62 percent access their Twitter accounts from work, and only 35 percent access their Twitter accounts from home. 

I just came across the Twitter page of a popular lady, and noticed that she had 3,548,295 "followers" but just 27 "following." The following to followers ratio works out to be 1:131,418. This means that she has 131,418 followers for every friend she is following. This is the Twitter page of Ellen DeGeneres.

When I checked the page of one of my recent followers, his first tweet said, "Just joined Twitter for the heck of it." Needless to say, that wasn't enough reason for me to follow back. However, most people from all walks of life are using Twitter to kick some goals in life.


Happy Tweeting!

What's Your Twitter Follow Philosophy?

You can also "Block" stalkers
if you notice any unusual interactions.

There are various trains of thoughts and philosophies regarding whom to follow and whom not to follow on Twitter. These are called "Follow Philosophies."

Here are just a few FPs (Follow Philosophies):

• Follow people and wait for a few weeks to see if they follow you back. If they don't, unfollow them.
• Follow everyone who follows you out of sheer courtesy.
• Follow those people who belong to your niche.
• Follow them if you like their faces.
• Follow them if you like their bios.
• Follow them if you like their sites.
• Follow them if you like their tweets.
  

...and the list goes on.

Twellow
Twellow is a cool application that lets you put into practice your FP. It taps into your Twitter account and neatly lays out all your Twitter associations by category. You can see the people linked to you through twitter. You can see their pictures, their profiles, their twitter page links, their followers, their URLs, their locations, their social links and their latest tweets.

Follow Indicator

There is one feature that I love on Twellow. It is the follow status indicator (that's what I call it). This little indicator will show you a rounded rectangular loop made by two arrows. If you are following someone and they aren't following you (non-mutuals), only half of the loop will be green. The remaining half will be red, indicating a one way association. If the entire loop is green it indicates a two way association (mutuals), meaning that the person you are following is following you back. This is an important visual cue that helps you sort out those who are not following you back and put your FP into practice.

Above this loop is a green "Remove" button, which you can use to remove someone from your following list with one click. The result will be reflected on your twitter page.

Cleaning the Clutter
I recently began to sort out my following. I logged into Twellow with my Twitter username and ID and began to look at the follow status indicator. I saw a bunch of one sided associations. I clicked on the "More Info" button to see some more details, and removed many from my list accordingly. Yes, I kept some important people who did not follow me back such as Dr. Wayne Dyer, and some other prominent personalities. However, I removed most celebrities without any hesitation. After all, they may have hired some ghostwriter to write their tweets.

I'm not done yet. It may take some time before I sort out all my following. Those whom I can't unfollow...what's the harm in letting them hang around?

Security

What's the harm? This brings me to an important issue- Security. You can "Protect" your tweets if you do not want anyone to read them, except for the ones you approve. Just go to the "Settings" option on the top right of your Twitter page and the rest is self explanatory. You can also "Block" stalkers if you notice any unusual interactions. Just go to your followers list and do the needful.

Spam

Another cool feature of Twellow is that you can browse through different categories and follow people from your niche. However, I must warn you about one of the side effects of doing this- Spam! But then, off course, you can block them by going to your Twitter follower list.

So, whatever your FP may be, it is much convenient to implement it at Twellow than at Twitter.

Happy Following!

This Could Happen to You!

We have become so dependent on our pointing devices that should they disappear one day, we may be left high and dry.

No Mouse?

What if you were to wake up one fine day and find your computer pointing device gone or rendered inoperable? Imagine starting up your desktop or laptop without your mouse. Not a difficult task, is it? Most of us would be able to do this. But what next? How about reading your emails or checking out your social networking sites. Would that be an easy task for most of us? I guess not!

How would life be without your computer trackpads, trackballs, joysticks, light pens and mice? Would you have to go back to the early MS DOS days, when you had to learn certain commands in order to go to a particular directory, open a program, change a directory or print some matter?

Not really. Microsoft Windows enables you to use a number of shortcuts to work with your Operating System, Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Browser and Email Client without using the mouse. However, very few of us know these shortcuts. We have become so dependent on our pointing devices that should they disappear one day, we may be left high and dry.

It Happened to Me!

One morning this is exactly what happened to me. My computer refused to co-operate with my mouse. Actually, there was some problem with the driver. I had a freelance assignment to complete, and I couldn’t wait. Fortunately I knew some keyboard shortcuts as I had been using the Windows operating system for the last 10 years (used MS DOS and Win 3.1 before that...yuck!).

Shortcuts Came to the Rescue
How did I get about? I used some Operating System shortcuts; so I could open "Windows Explorer" by using "Windows+E." Then I used the Tab and Arrow keys to navigate around, and finally hit Enter to open my Microsoft Word document.

I knew how to close Microsoft Word using the "Alt+F4" keyboard shortcut. There are other ways to close a Word document, but I loved the "Alt+F4" shortcut, and rarely use the mouse for this action even today.

Another favorite shortcut that I always use even today is "Alt+Tab." It is so convenient to switch between all my open “windows” using this combination, rather than pointing my mouse to the taskbar and clicking on the required window.

Being able to navigate through the Start Menu without using the mouse is also very important, since most of the programs and documents can be accessed through the Start Menu. You can also Shut Down your computer using “Turn Off Computer…” on the Start Menu. However, I love to use "Alt+F4" to shut down my PC.

Once I open a Word or an Excel Document, I can get around without using the mouse for some basic operations. However, I’m not an expert at Word Keyboard Shortcuts or Excel Keyboard Shortcuts. Therefore I end up using the mouse for selecting text color, aligning text, copy formatting, inserting header and footer and other actions.

There are a whole range of Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts too. I just use the basic ones for navigating around a page and for switching tabs. My favorite ones here are F5 for refreshing a page and "Ctrl/Shift+Tab" for changing browser tabs.

What about Blogger Keyboard Shortcuts? Blogger has them too, although very few. Despite the fact that the blogger posts get autosaved, I frequently find myself using the Ctrl+S to save my posts.

The Indispensable Mouse
No matter how well you know your shortcuts, computer pointing and tracking devices have become indispensable. If you don't believe me, try doing the following without a mouse or a trackpad:
- Opening a link on a website
- Opening your Blogger or WordPress Dashboard
- Dragging and Dropping

...don’t work yourself up trying to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. It’s not worth it.

If you think about it, there are tons of things that a mouse can do with ease, and therefore we do not bother to use shortcuts. If you are good at touch typing, like me, you will appreciate some keyboard shortcuts. However, don’t work yourself up trying to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. It’s not worth it. The highly versatile computer trackpads and mice are here to stay till touch screen technology takes over. Until then, don't let your mouse go away :)

The Power of a Few Words- My Take on Microblogging and Micro URLs

Everything's going micro,
from handhelds to laptops,
and now blogs and URLs have joined the trend.

Microblogging

Just when I began to enjoy blogging on my blogger account, someone introduced me to microblogging. The world's getting faster, I tell you,...and smaller.

Everything's going micro, from handhelds to laptops, and now blogs and URLs have joined the trend.

(For those quick readers, it's fine to scroll down to the last few paragraphs of this article)

I'm a writer. I  love to write long and well organized blog posts. However, with microblogging, my words are restricted to just 140 to 150 characters.

"140 characters?" I thought to myself. What in the world can I write using just 140 characters! All my inhibitions faded away once I started using Twitter- the name that  has become synonymous with microblogging and social networking.

Just a few days into Twitter
and I figured out
the power of those 140 characters.

Micro Social Networking

Facebook allows you a lot of activity on its turf. You can be a part of as many "stories" as you like. Your posts are not very much restricted and you can write volumes on your "notes." You can upload your pictures directly from your camera onto the site, and you can comment on your friend's pictures. You can create your own group and invite all your friends to join it, or you can join another group. That's a lot of disk space allotted to you! However, you've got to be disciplined about whom you invite, and cannot add a "friend" unless they confirm you. This restricts the stray marketer and the intruding moneymaker.

Twitter does not make friendship conditional. You can "follow" anyone you like, unless they block you or "protect" their "tweets." At the same time anyone can be your "follower." It's an open platform for moneymakers and marketers alike, and the same goes for the one who is seeking friends and fans.

Just a few days into Twitter and  I figured out the power of those 140 characters. Almost every day I have "followers" pouring in without much action on my part. Yes, many of them are marketers and do not hesitate to say, "Hello."

Now, there are also ways to add a 100 followers a day; however, I'm still a bit slow at blogging (oops...microblogging), and would not like to delve into that at full steam. I'm not a full time blogger; so whether it is blogs or microblogs, you will see a little activity on my part every now and then.

Note: You may soon see third party contextual ads on Twitter, just like the ones you see on Facebook.

Microblogging has created another need:
the need to shorten URLs.

Micro URLs

Microblogging has created another need: the need to shorten URLs. Most tweeters would like to save on character space, and this is where URL shorteners come in.

Tinyurl has been in business for many years now, helping one to shorten URLs mainly for masking the actual URL. Bit.ly and tr.im have gone a few steps further by shortening the URLs even more. That's not all; you can even post your URLs directly to Twitter with just the click of a mouse. Furthermore, you can get detailed statistics as to how many people have clicked on your newly shortened URL and how it is  performing throughout.

Lessons from Microblogging

That 140 word restriction can teach you a lot:

- to be concise

- to write to the point and not ramble around

- to get the maximum impact from minimum words

- to be restrained in your phraseology and get cracking with business

  

Here's the bottom line:

Twitter has fewer features as compared to facebook, and yet the impact it has been having proves that if you've got to make a point, words need not be many.

So, don't waste your words! There is power in a few words!

-ContentScoop
September 10, 2009

Jack of All Niches, Master of...?

The Information Highway

The Internet is an information highway. Just when you think you are gaining speed, someone whizzes by you at break neck speed, giving you a complex about how slow you are. Just when you think you are getting there, you are given to understand that you are far from your destination.

If you are not organized at how to get your information,
you may get tossed around like a ping pong ball.

The Place To Be
Nevertheless, the internet is the place to be. Be careful though; there is bucket loads of information being shoved down your throat; more than you can ever swallow or digest. If you are not organized at how to get your information, you may get tossed around like a ping pong ball. So, what niche are you targeting?

There are tons of people teaching you how to do things; many of them selling their wares. Why not? The internet is a place for everyone- the occasional surfer, the online addict, the marketomonger, the moneymaniac, the tecnofreak and the bloggogeek.  

what is the use if I am the jack of all niches
but a master of none?

Where do I stand?

Where do I stand amidst all this online brouhaha? What niche am I targeting? I want to be a blogger, a writer, a marketeer, a money maker, an adviser, a cartoonist, a journalist and a SEO expert. I could possible work myself up to be a jack of all the above mentioned niches. However, what is the use if I am the jack of all niches but a master of none?

HOW TO CHOOSE MY NICHE...

What niche am I targeting? Here are some questions that helped me decide on my niche:

1. What do I enjoy doing?

I am a writer, and this is what I do the best. So I will stick to being a writer whether I successfully manage to promote my blog or not; whether I make money or not; whether my blog and social networks are followed or not.

So whichever niche you choose, choose one that you enjoy going about, be it blogging or making money or writing; something that you will enjoy doing a few years from now.

2. What can I offer to the world?

I believe that I have the ability to give people what they want to read. Now, yes, my posts span a wide range of topics. However, I see to it that what I write is useful to others.

Now most people would love to read about making money. Sorry, I'm not an expert at that right now. I can pretend to be a money making guru, but I'm comfortable with what I genuinely have to offer to the world.

Think of what you have to offer to the world. It could be something as simple as sharing about your daily experiences.

3. Who will my friends be?

I have just begun to "tweet." Now, there are people who follow me (thankfully) on twitter everyday. However, I do not follow all of them (regretfully; I hope they understand), unless they are writers or bloggers (I need them).

Once you choose your niche, you must build your network wisely. It would do you good to choose friends associated with your particular niche.

What niche am I targeting? If you ever have to answer that question, ask yourself the above 3 questions first. 

-ContentScoop
September 03, 2009

How I Added the "Tweet this!" Button

Just joined Twitter! Better late than never!

Still learning the ropes :-)

Well, I thought one thing that would be cool is to give my readers an opportunity to add my blog posts to their twitter page. So I decided to add this cute little "tweet this!" button below my posts. It's kind of tiny and sits at the bottom without interfering with my posts. So it does not steal the show.

The very first thing I did
was to take a backup of my template

I contacted one of my blogger expert friends, and he helped me to get it done.


How I did it:

Step #1

I went to my Blogger Dashboard>Layout>Edit HTML.

The very first thing I did was to take a backup of my template, just in case I did something wrong and all the cute little tweaks I managed on my template would disappear. I would no way be able to get my blog to look the same again.  

Step #2

Next, I checked the "Expand Widget Templates" Box and then began my tinkering.

I searched for this code:

Note: The above code appears only after checking the "Expand Widget Templates" Box. 

Step #3 

Once I located the above code, i pasted the following code below it:

Step #4

Before saving my newly tweaked template, I clicked on "Preview." This step is just to check for errors. If you see the preview of your blog, your code is correct. If you do not see the preview, something is wrong with the code and your new template will not be saved.

Note: You will not see your "tweet this!" button in the preview. So don't be disheartened.

Step #5

Next, click on "Save Template" and then on "View Blog."

Voila!

The button looks like this:

If you cannot see it at the bottom of my post, click on the post header or title and you will see it. Got some fine tuning to do...

So dear friends, countrymen, readers,...! Please click on the button if you find my posts worth the time spent on my blog. If not, I look forward to learning from you.

-ContentScoop
August 29, 2009