Top 12 Tricks For Titles Of Your Articles

By Gunter Gerdenitsch
Posted Sunday, August 22, 2004

Archiving articles offers, among other advantages, even some amusement. If you do it consequently for a while, you can see that most of their titles fall into one of a few categories. Some of their titles are even combinations of two or three.

Sure, for article titles there are many more techniques than these. The examples mentioned here are not even the most creative ones. Yet, for Internet articles you can easily concoct attractive titles without much thinking by using these tricks. Similarly you can compose the subject lines of your emails, to give them better chances to be opened in a mailbox full of junk mail.

1. SECRETIVENESS

We all want to get behind secrets. If you make your article appear like revealing something that is not publicly known, you can almost be sure to "hook" your readers.

Examples: "Secrets of ... ", "Tips and Tricks for ... ", "Guidelines for ... "

2. The NUMBERS GAME

What do they do in supermarkets if they want to push a product without spending a dime on advertising? They put it on display, they amass heaps of cans, they put it on "second placement" right in the middle of the way between the shelves. That way they are appealing to our primeval instinct: If there is more than one thing at a place, that's interesting. You can do the same when writing an article.

Examples: "10 Ways to ... ", "12 Reasons for ... ", "20 Points to ...", etc.

3. SUPERLATIVES

Guinness "Book of Records" was not the first one to call on our natural interest for knowing extremes. Even in ancient times there have been authors exploiting that technique of rhetoric.

Examples: "Top ... ", "The Biggest ... ", "The Best ... ", "The First ... ", etc.

4. Promising A RECIPE

Every one will be interested if you promise to give a step-by-step recipe for a complicated matter. Even if your recipe is not exhaustive. Even the better, if may make people think you distilled the recipe from your own experience.

Examples: "How to ... ", "What to ... ", "How I did ... ", etc.

5. TIME

Giving a sense of "quick and easy" as well as "urgency", that's another way how you can create interest in your article.

Examples: " ... in 10 Minutes", "10 Hours to ... ", "10 Days Left For ... ", etc.

6. QUESTIONS, ANSWERS, or both

You can make a potential reader feel being personally addressed by posing a question right in the title of your article. Even the more, if you provide an answer along with it. Best, if you can give it a "slant" by providing an unexpected answer. ("Slant", that's the concept of professional writers how to breathe life into their texts.)

There are so many examples of this technique that I didn't want to waste space on a few instances.

7. "NEW" or "NEW AND IMPROVED"

A special case of the "Superlatives" technique is talking about something "new". People are always interested in the latest findings, breakthroughs, fashions, innovations, etc. Even the more so if the title of your article promises to let them know how to use that knowledge for a better life.

8. AROUSING Concepts

A technique used in many film titles, dramas, in belles-lettres etc. is to use a "power word" and to unfold the wording around it.

Examples: "Danger", "Treat", "Hidden", "The Truth About ... ", " ... unheard of", etc.

9. SUBJECT-SPECIFIC KEYWORDS

If you are writing to a specific audience with rather focused interests (ezine articles, for example!) you can pinpoint your article's line by an attention-getting keyword right in the title. Though you should be rather familiar with your subject.

Examples: "Marketing", "Web Site Design", "Traffic", "Search Engines", "Spam", etc.

10. Phrases provoking "YES, THAT'S RIGHT!" or "NO, TOTALLY WRONG!"

It takes a bit of gut feeling - but if you have it, you can make your title very forceful. If not, you are risking to give rise to a response like "Well, so what?"

Examples: "Enough with ... ", "Never try to ...!", "I never dreamed of ... ", etc.

11. SURPRISE

If you know your audience pretty well, you can take it by surprise. But be sure to keep up the tension right in the first paragraph of your article. Otherwise you are risking to disappoint readers, even to make them feel they had fallen for a "cheap trick".

Examples are very much depending on your subject.

12. ALLITERATION

Did you notice what I did in the title of this article? Why did you start reading it in the first place? - Might be because I used a little trick that was known to ancient rhetoricians already. (Well, I must have given you some information, too. Or you wouldn't have kept on reading till the end.)

The trick is simply to word the title in a way to have the same initial letter for *all* (or at least *most*) of the words. An additional gag is to hide it in figures (like the word "twelve" in my title what I wrote as "12").

About the Author
Article by Gunter Gerdenitsch, owner of '1st Components Design' (http://www.1st-components.com), mailto:gunter@1st-components.com ).
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