How I Use Emotional Titles To Create High Performing Articles as a Newbie
New writers try incorporating these in your titles: Numbers, How, Why, What, and Where
If your goal is to be successful on Medium then this is the article for you👇
According to Copyblogger, on average 8 out of 10 people will read your headline but only 2 out of 10 will read beyond that. A great headline will make the difference between your post being read or 🦗
Many of my articles perform in the 200+ to 1000 internal views range and credit goes to 💞Emotional Titles💞.
What is an emotional title❓
A title that makes you feel excited enough to click on it and read the article is an emotional title. In other words, it evokes powerful emotions in readers like curiosity, excitement, empathy or they feel like your article has something beneficial to offer them.
🎈 This is a screenshot of my stats page showing my articles that were published in November:
From this list you can see how I effectively make use of the Famous Five: Numbers, How, What, Why, and Where in my titles.
🔨Lemme break down why using the Famous Five in titles are effective:
1️⃣Number: Let’s face it, many are in a rush and may prefer a listicle-type article that is a quick and easy read or a number in the headline which emphasizes how succinct ✅ or how comprehensive(groan) the article is.
It, therefore, doesn’t come as a surprise that a Conductor Study published on moz.com found that the top 2 headlines that resonated with readers had a number in them.
2️⃣How-tos: My best performing article’s title starts with a How and from that itself a reader clearly knows what they can expect from clicking on it. I was able to deliver valuable insights as promised in the title which my readers found to be helpful as can be seen from the views👀 and 160+ comments.
3️⃣Ask a question that your reader cannot resist: Time and time again I have seen new writers pose questions in the title that does the opposite of piquing interest in the reader when that should be the goal 🥅. Sometimes they give the answer in the headline itself which is a no-no.
Why would anyone want to read on then❓
4️⃣Make your headline as specific as you can: An important lesson I learned early on is to be specific. As writers we are aware of how important titles are — it can mean life or death for an article — and yet I see new writers ignore that piece of crucial advice and put something in their title that is
- Vague
- Generic
- Something that could refer to anything that falls under the umbrella of a broad topic ergo confusing.
- Done to death🥱
Then why complain of declining views❓
I recently came across an article published in the socialmediaexaminer that talks about a Chartbeat study of a random sample of 2 billion views generated by 580,000 articles and the results were quite revealing — 55% of visitors spent less than 15 seconds on a page❗❗❗
Numbers don’t lie. In my opinion, it kind of puts the importance of a killer title into perspective.
👉If you would like to read about why I rewrite my titles at least 10 times (sometimes even 20) before I hit publish and how it’s helped me 🚀 my views/earnings then this is the article for you.
📣I’d like to give 3 shout outs to 3 amazing writers:
A short form on the importance of mindfulness in our lives by my Medium friend Kristina God
A very interesting article on synesthesia by Nicole Hilbig
Eco-Friendly gift suggestions from Danielle Hestand that I found to be super helpful💟
