If you have a choice between reading two articles, one titled, “Broccoli Improves Your Nerves” and the other titled, “Why Broccoli Improves Your Nerves,” which would you read first?
If you’re like me, you’d read the article that calls you to act. You’d skip over the one that is declaratory. You’d be tickled why broccoli would improve your nerves and care less that broccoli does it. You may even want to know why the article author chose to begin it with “Why,” wouldn’t you?
Asking provocative questions are among the 9 successful headline formulas that work — whether for your blog or your next book chapter or magazine article pitch, according to guest blogger Dean Rieck at Copyblogger.
Asking a question directly involves your reader. However, your question cannot be random or clever. It must relate directly and clearly to the major benefit of the product. It must also prod the reader to answer “yes” or at least “I’m not sure, but I want to know more.”
Fact is, you most likely clicked into this blog post solely because it included the word “Why” and ended with a question mark. How off-target am I?
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Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the mention of the article. Asking a question in a headline can be quite effective if it’s the right question.
If you’re interested in other types of headlines, I posted 117 great headlines that have been proven winners. http://www.procopytips.com/tested-headlines
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Great post! Call to actions and catchy titles can make a world of difference I read a long blog post about this once on SEO book that was very good. It’s amazing how many more views a good title can get than a blah title that doesn’t inspire someone to act or click.
Awesome post! Blog post titles are the first thing people see and they usually determine within a few seconds whether they want to read it. So using something catchy always makes for a better post. I especially like using things like “stop now,” since people feel even more compelled to keep reading.
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Hey Ari, your posts are not only interesting but also very informative. A compelling title can be a powerful force to captivate user’s attention; and the usage of “why”, “how” seems to be quite popular in the blogging world. I guess asking questions are easier than answering them. Don’t ask me, why?
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Excellent point I guess it depends on whether you are choosing the blog post title to be friendly to the search engines, or for people to read.
The first example may bring in more traffic from search engines.
Interesting!
Just did analysis on my own posts. All those (bar 1), which had a question type title, had comments!
Will have to use much more often.
Thanks.
Andrew
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Why a question improves readership. That pretty much says it all. It engages the reader to think about what is being said, and why it is important to them.
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This is a great writing tip. Anything that engages a reader like who, what, when, where, why and how works this way. But if you overuse this technique, the reader will become oblivious to it. Everything in mdoeration.
Baby steps, indeed.
I clicked to this article because of your title. I don’t, but I think this is very good for adsense. You would write a question article with no answer in the post. So the visitor or reader would exit your site through adsense.
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