Do Crappy Titles Ruin the Appreciation of Authentic Writing on Medium?

You may be surprised by what I discovered

Best Headline Word Count

Let’s face it, crafting a great title is not easy.

For many, once they’re done with the body of the article, they’re fresh out of juice to slave over the perfect title. So, they slap on the first thing that comes to mind and hit publish.

The same goes for the choice of featured images. Sound familiar?

By doing these, are you dooming the article to be lost in the shuffle of the mind-boggling number of articles published on the daily? After all, it is the opinion of the experts that a title can make or break an article.

Even then, they have varied opinions on how to write a catchy headline.

👉Manuel Amunategui suggests that the optimal length for a Medium title is between 5 to 10 words. He arrived at this by analyzing the ideal title length of Amazon's best-selling books and Medium’s most clapped articles.

👉According to the content discovery platform, Outbrain “The sweet spot is between 12–18 words, so aim high.”

👉Finally, Sharethrough discovered that 21–28 words were needed to maximize reader engagement!

Personally speaking, my article titles tend to be within the 2 to the 15-word range.

🎈What do you think? What is your sweet spot as far as headlines go?

Let’s explore headlines a little further. According to a study that examined an extensive set of headlines from various online publications and social networks to identify trends in headline writing — this is what they came up with:

In other words, per the study, the headlines that resonated most with readers were the following (with examples):

1️⃣Normal (Ways to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful)

2️⃣Question (What are Ways to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful?)

3️⃣How to (How to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful)

4️⃣Number (30 Ways To Make Drinking Tea More Delightful)

5️⃣Reader-Addressing (Ways You Need to Make Drinking Tea More Delightful)

Text-to-self connections

I have been writing here for 3 years and as far as writing titles go, my writing journey can be divided into 3 phases.

Initially, I had no clue about titles so it is no wonder they were too broad and generic.

I started seeing a noticeable difference in views when I started rewriting my titles a bunch of times. For example, this article was one of my first to cross 1K views as a newbie writer and I believe it is entirely due to the title. Here are the titles I played around with before arriving at the one that sounded just right:

“6 Signs You Are With A Narc”

“My Friend’s Experience With A Narc”

“Red Flags of A Narc Relationship”

“Signs You Could Be Dealing With A Narc”

“How A Narcissistic Relationship Affected My Friend”

And finally, a title that I settled on: “My Friend Was The Trophy Boyfriend Of A Narcissist.”

After the ‘rewriting the title at least 10 times’ phase, I went through an ‘adding a number in the title’ phase where almost all my headlines had numbers in them👇

Then last year, I chucked everything I learned about writing headlines out the window and started writing titles by following my intuition.

This happened after deciding to focus on writing for myself rather than to cater to an audience which is what I typically do. It marked the beginning of my sharing some of my most vulnerable stories — I just let my words flow about heartbreak and my struggle with depression.

The intention wasn’t to impress, convince, or sway opinion; it was simply about sharing an unfiltered portrayal of my life.

Surprisingly, readers were drawn to them despite the lack of catchy titles.

One reason for that could be the text-to-self connections. These are personal associations that readers create between the content they’re reading and their own life experiences.

As a reader, I know this is how I found some writers whom I diligently read and no, it has little to do with their titles and everything to do with their authentic storytelling skills.

In other words, ‘it is telling it as it is.’

So, what makes an authentic story? An authentic story “is a story that is told with integrity, it is intimate and personable, it feels like we are right there, a part of the story. Authentic storytelling conveys real emotions, builds relationships and communities.”

🎈I’m curious, where do you stand on this? Even if titles capture your attention, can that alone make you a loyal reader?

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