Even if you’ve written a sensational blog post on a topic of importance to your prospects, don’t gloss over the critical task of creating an effective Headline. With a boring title, people will skip past your post – and you want to make your reader (skimmer/scroller) stop in their tracks – it piques curiosity and entices them to read the content. Yes, you have to market your marketing!
Which would you rather read….
“How To Write A Blog” Or “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Blogs” or perhaps, “5 Biggest Mistakes To Avoid When Writing a Blog”.
One Idea: Create the Most Critical Piece at the End
Marketing courses encourage you to wait until you’ve completed the article and then craft a powerful headline. This is how I typically work on my blogs, and believe me, the headline for this one changed at least 4 5 times.
Writing one blog at a time and leaving the task until our editorial calendar states that it’s due is a painfully inefficient way to go about blogging. Instead, why not plan ahead for a few months of content inventory? If you’re kicking around dusty brain cells hoping for inspiration, let’s perk up creativity with a fun experiment.
Flip the Process – Start with the Title
Start by only writing the headlines that you believe your audience will stop and read. How? List the questions you’re most often asked. While this is an effective method, it’s still not terribly fun.
So – try this – step further back and write formats first, then go back and fill in the headlines.
What Formats Work for You?
Take 10 minutes to list all the headline formats you can think of, or those that have worked to pique your curiosity. Don’t worry about the actual topic. Examples:
- How I Used To ___ Before I Learned This Way Works Better
- 7 Simple Ways To ____
- Have You Ever Thought of ____? Here’s How To Make It Happen
Get the idea? You can make it even more interesting and fun by using a headline generating tool for inspiration. I tried https://www.weshare.net/headline-generator/ and while AI is never perfect, it was something to play around with and get you started.
Filling the Formats with Questions
Finding what our prospects want to know about would be great if we had a direct line into Google HQ to spy on what people search on the web. Luckily, we can use one of several tools available on the web that peek into what questions people most often type in the search bars of their browser. And as expected, there are several AI tools there as well. One example is www.searchresponse.io/people-also-ask. SEMRush also has great tools. Honestly, there are many resources out there, so go play.
The Very Best Way to Get Topics
But truly, LISTENING to your top clients and smartest prospects is always the best way to come up with the questions that matter to them – real people in your world. So now you’re ready to list those questions, which should include an important topic: YOU!
People may ask you:
- How long have you been doing this?
- Why do you use this method?
- How do I know your service will help me?
- Explain how your process works.
Answer It Once in a Blog
Whatever their question, it becomes the subject of a blog post. Think of it this way – you can answer that question over and over again for each person who asks – or you can answer it once and just point people to your blog post to find the answer.
Are You Ready to Get It Done, or Get It Done for You?
I hope these tips motivate you to plan out your next few months’ blog posts! But if nothing seems to help, and you either hate writing or can think of 100 things you’d rather do with your time, reach out and let’s talk about outsourcing your blog writing to someone who actually loves writing.