If You Earned $9.22 in July, You Need To Read This

Part Two of the ‘Headline Help’ series

I’ll be honest. When I wrote, A Rigorous Analysis of 8 (EIGHT) Medium Titles Guaranteed To Grow Your Readership By 80% I fully expected to go viral. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

My analysis focused on four potential Medium headlines in order to consider the best way to draw more clicks to your beloved story.

• 17 Simple Tricks To Help You Get The Last Toothpaste Out The Tube
• Are You An Idiot?
• 44% of Lions Have Not Read No Books
• Here’s What Happened When I Wrote An Article About Something That Happened To Me

By weighing up the pros and cons of each, I aimed to tease out fool-proof ways to increase readership. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t ready for such outrageously practicable advice.

But, unperturbed, I’m back with the sequel nobody’s clamoring for!

Buckle up your belts and tighten those masks because these headlines are guaranteed to make you cough! (Seriously, I hope you’re wearing a mask.)

Heading #1: I Swapped My Car For Apple Pie

I really did.

What’s working well?

1. Pie. Pie gets clicks.
2. It’s unexpected. More believable would be, ‘I Swapped My Car For A Cherry Tart’.

What could be improved?

1. The author’s sense must be questioned. Will people want to take advice from someone so inept at decision making?
2. ‘Swapped’ is ambiguous. Was the swap reversible? (It was not.) Did any cash change hands as part of the deal? (It did not.)

Rating: 5/9

Heading #2: A Rigorous Analysis of 8 (EIGHT) Medium Titles Guaranteed To Grow Your Readership By 80%

Hmm.

What’s working well?

Not much to see here.

What could be improved?

1. I found out just too late. Eight is out. Nine is the new trend.
2. I think rigor scares people. ‘Rigorous Ralph’ sounds a lot less fun than ‘Roaring Rick’ or ‘Raunchy Rita’.
3. Promising a guarantee is risky these days because everyone is wary of being conned. A more tentative approach may have been more successful: ‘8 titles that might grow your readership (if you’re lucky) ((you never know)) (((I’m crossing my fingers & my toes for you)))’.

Rating: 1/9

Heading #3: The Time Has Come For Me To Reveal Once & For All That, After Many Years Of Soul Searching, I Have Concluded That I Am…

Mysterious.

What’s working well?

1. Everyone likes mysteries. And everyone likes solving mysteries. Leaving the title on a cliff hanger is guaranteed to make people click.

What could be improved?

1. ‘The time has come’ — a bit of a cliché.
2. ‘for me to reveal’ — we know it’s you who’s going to be doing the revealing.
3. ‘once and for all’ — another hackneyed phrase.
4. ‘after many years of soul searching’ — platitude party!
5. ‘I have concluded that I am’ — can we ever conclude definitively?

Rating: 2.5/9

Heading #4: If You Earned $9.22 in July, You Need To Read This

I’ll let you know how this works out…

What’s working well?

1. It’s specific. If by chance, somebody did earn $9.22 in July, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance they’ll read it!

What could be improved?

1. You might be excluding a few people. You could give a range for earnings instead.
2. The article will date quickly. Who’s going to want to read about July in two months' time?

Rating: TBC

I hope this was vaguely helpful and/or entertaining. 0/2? Well, rest assured, there definitely won’t be a part three. Probably.

Daniel Clark is a reader, writer, linguist, poet & worn-out comedian. Lockdown has drained the last of his creativity.