Although content is important when you are trying to leverage social media sites like Netscape or Digg, the story title used for the submission maybe as important if not more important. Here are a few types of titles that I have found to be effective.
1. Increase Your [Blank] within [short time period]
This headline promises the reader that they will see an increase in something within a short period of time. People are impatient; they want to see results within a certain time period.
* Increase Your Blog Traffic within 30 Days
* Increase Your Wealth within 1 Week
2. How-to Improve Your [Blank] through [number] Easy Steps
People love how-to guides and lists so why not combine them? This headline shows people how-to do something in a list format.
* How-to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings through 7 Easy Steps
* How-to Improve Your Health through 5 Easy Steps
3. [Blank] Goes to an All Time Low by [some sort of incident]
By making a strong statement readers will be tempted to click through and find out more.
* Comcast Goes to an All Time Low by Ripping Off a Senior Citizen
* Yahoo Goes to an All Time Low by Copying Digg
4. How-to [Blank] – The Ultimate Guide
By using the phrase “ultimate guide” and “how-to” in the same sentence people feel they are going to learn something and never have to learn it again. Why learn something when you can learn it once by reading the ultimate guide.
* How-to Install Linux – The Ultimate Guide
* How-to Create a Power Point Presentation – The Ultimate Guide
5. The [Name of an expert] Approach to [What the expert is good at]
People love to learn from experts, so why not teach them.
* The Guy Kawasaki Approach to Writing
* The Adaptive Path Approach to Design
There are tons of other title styles you can use when submitting a story to socially driven websites, but these are some of the ones I use on a regular basis. If you are looking for more headline templates I recommend checking out Copyblogger.
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About the Author
Neil Patel is an Internet marketing consultant for ACS where he has lead Internet marketing strategies for companies such as Hewlett Packard and Samsung. Currently Neil blogs about his marketing experiences at Pronet Advertising.
