Blog Titles to Tell “The Truth”

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Late last year, journalists at National Geographic Magazine teamed up with AARP to explore “how Americans perceive aging as we emerge from the COVID pandemic”. There were a number of great articles in the AARP Bulletin issue, but what was so interesting to me as a blog content writer was the way the word “truth” kept appearing in some of the titles: “The New Truth About Aging”,”The New Truth About Voting Laws.”

“Your blog headline is the first impression a reader will have with your content. It can be their reason for clicking or their reason for brushing your post aside.,” observes the createmytherapist website.com. “A catchy headline could cause someone to pause, pique their interest and make them hungry for more of the content they’ll find in your blog post. It’s also one of the most important factors for your search engine optimization (SEO)”.

For me as a blog content writer, Truth-Abouts make for compelling titles. There’s a hint of mystery, a promise an expose, perhaps – as a reader, I feel as if I am going to be given the “real scoop” There’s something enticing about a title promising to “bare the truth”, especially when it concerns a topic on which we didn’t expect there to be any secrets to speak of.

At Say It For You, we use “Truth-About’ blog posts with three basic purposes in mind:

1. To de-mystify a subject.
2. To myth-bust, addressing misunderstandings about a product or service
3. To offer actionable steps readers can take

Helping readers sort truth from myth is one important use for business blogs.  In the natural order of business, many misunderstandings about a product or service present themselves, and shining the light of day on misinformation shines light on your own expertise in your field.

Even when there is no final answer, blog content writers can summarize the different schools of thought and recap the research that is being done in the field. That in itself can go a long way towards making your blog a “go-to” place for readers seeking information relating to your industry or profession.

Blog titles “to tell the truth” can be a very useful content writing idea!

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In Blogging for Business, Clarity is Better Than Originality

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We never want to alienate readers “just for the sake of it”, cautions Moriah Richard, editor of Writer’s Digest. Readers want to be surprised, but they don’t want to be tricked, she explains.

Camilla Allegrucci agrees. She has good news and bad news for writers all wrapped into one: “New ideas are not a thing”. Rather than original ideas, she says, you need an original voice. Sure, you might need some work to refine your “voice”, but you can express yourself in the best way your voice allows. When it comes to content writing, it’s all about answering your audience’s queries, so why reinvent the wheel when people are already telling us what they want to read about? Write from your own perspective and

An audio course for book authors, Brainstorming a Better Book Title, emphasizes the same concept. “The number one requirement for your book title is, does it clearly indicate what the book is about? If you can come up with a title that’s both clear and clever, all the better, Marci Yudkin says. But if you must choose between clarity and cleverness, clarity is more important for success.

“Cutesy is for dolls, not blog post titles,” is my own Say It For You motto. Yes, titles are important, very important. In fact, titles represent crucial elements in capturing the interest of both search engines and online searchers. But, aside from Search Engine Optimization considerations, the title of a blog post constitutes a set of implied promises to visitors: The main promise is simply this: lf you choose to click on this title, it will lead you to a blog post with information on the topic named in the title.

It helps to bring in less well-known facts about familiar things and processes, and even more when you suggest new ways of thinking about things readers already know. New ideas may not be “a thing”, but new insights and opinions can be. At Say It For You, our advice to business owners and their content writers is that you must offer an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up to readers. No, it’s not “new information”, and you’re not re-inventing the proverbial wheel. What’s “new is the clarity of your views on the subject.

In blogging for business, clarity is better than originality – every time.

 

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In Blogging, Use Numbered Lists; Don’t Forget the Subscript

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A subscript is a character that is set slightly below the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. The National Geographic’ magazine issue “100 Places That will Change Your Life” is a great example of the way content writers can use subscripts in the titles of blog posts..

Under the name of each place the National Geographic authors recommend you visit, they’ve described a specific experience you can enjoy:

  • In Qutu, China, you can learn Shaolin kug fu, the martial art developed by monks in the 15th century.
  • In Oaxaca, Mexico, you can learn to prepare tamales using chocolate, grasshoppers, and corn fungus.
  • In Jamaica, make sure to meet the Maroons, descendants of enslaved Africans who fought for freedom from the British.
  • At Ellis Island, you can discover parts of your own family history.
  • In Vietnam, you can wander the spice forests.
  • In Bali, Indonesia, look for stunning penjor, bamboo poles adorned with frit, flowers, ad coconut leaves that display Hindu offerings during the festival of Galungan.

The way this wonderful magazine issue is set out serves as a reminder of several blog writing tactics we emphasize at Say it For You:

  1. Present information in numbered lists – Lists spatially organize information, helping create an easy reading experience, working well for scanning and skimming online searchers.
  2. Use “huh-oh” titles – “Huh?s” arouse curiosity; the “ohs” make clear what the article is about and use the keyword phrases.
  3. Offer specific advice and tips, thereby demonstrating that we understand our target readers’ needs.
  4. Include startling statistics – “Only an estimated one in 1,000 to 10,000 survives to adulthood” (describing why readers might be interested in rescuing sea turtles in Costa Rica). Opening your post with a startling statistic can be a way to grab visitors’ attention. If there’s some false impression people seem to have relating to your industry, or to a product or service you provide, statistics can serve as myth-busters.

In blogging, use numbered lists, and don’t forget the subscripts!

 

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Great Beginnings for Business Blogs

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“Set the hook with great beginnings,” Sharon Short teaches in Writer’s Digest. Standard pieces of advice include:

  • Immediately grab attention
  • Don’t start with description – especially weather!
  • Don’t jump right into dialogue or action

Take some pressure off yourself, Short advises writers – openings will emerge when the theme of the project becomes clearer, she says, noting that there are 5 characteristics of a great story beginning:

  1. Immediacy (readers need an immediate reason to care)
  2. Tone (light-hearted, wry. Comedic, serious, informational)
  3. Suspense (teasing readers’ curiosity)
  4. Specificity (provide context right away)
  5. Fair play (consistency of style as the piece progresses).

It is the five specific techniques that Sharon Short describes that I believe are especially applicable to business blog content writing:

1. Dialogue – We all love to eavesdrop just a little.
Any good narrative should contain some dialogue and sensory details. In blog case studies, incidents from the news, folklore, including actual quotes and dialogue makes the material more real for the reader.

2. Superlatives – Describe an event or item as the least, biggest, most, smallest, first or last.
Superlatives in headlines “sell”. “The most successful people”, “The happiest people”, “The most interesting people” – these are people we want to know more about. Readers enjoy discovering, learning, and challenging the details behind blanket assertions.

3. Thematic statement – State the premise or thesis of the entire book – what you are about to prove.
Putting a summary or conclusion at the beginning of a piece of writing certainly sounds like a strange thing to do, but the pow-opening-line idea I teach in corporate blogging training session focuses on that very sort of “descending” writing structure.

4. Voice – Hook readers’ empathy with a compelling voice, making each reader feel as if you’re in a conversation with her alone.
In your business blog, while viewers are reading, not hearing, the “voice”, it’s important to have “voice variety”. That can come from writing some of the content in I-you format, with other posts written in third person. If a company person or a customer is being interviewed, the can be written in the “voice” of the interviewee or that of the interviewer.

5. Surprise – Shock the reader, even in a small way.
Beginning with a startling statistic is certainly one tactic blog writers can use to bring a point to the forefront of readers’ minds, then illustrating that point with specific examples.

Set the hook to each blog post with a great beginning!

 

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Brand Names and Blog Post Titles

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When naming something, it is human nature to want to describe what you are naming, entrepreneur.com states. Examples of well-known company names that describe what they do or make include International Business Machines, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Despite that logic, there’s no denying non-descriptive names have value. In fact, Statistica lists the leading U.S. brands for 2021, showing brand value in the millions of US. dollars for companies whose names do not allude to their products and services:

  • Apple 262.38
  • Amazon 254.19
  • Google 191.22
  • Microsoft 140.44
  • Walmart 93.19
  • Facebook 81.48

Those startling performance statistics for non-descriptor names notwithstanding, at Say It For You, we advise making clear in the title of each blog post – to both searchers and search engines – exactly what that post is going to be about. Here are three important reasons why:

  1. A blog post title in itself constitutes a set of implied promises to visitors. In essence, you’re saying, “If you click here, you will read information about…..”
  2. Since an important purpose of marketing blogs is attracting online shoppers, blog post titles are a crucial element in the process.
  3. The keyword phrases in the title are the way you “get found” by search engines; one keyword phrase is your brand name.

 

All that is not to say titles can’t be true to their topic and still be creative enough to entice searchers to want to read the content. You can, for example:

1. Create a title with an “agenda”, so readers have a clue as to your point of view on a topic before reading the article

2. Create an emotionally grabbing title “How Exercise Keeps You Young”

3. Create a how-to title

4. Create a “truth about” title with a hint of mystery

SEO company Yoast questions to ask in creating a brand and then executing a keyword phrase strategy:

– What does your brand stand for?
– What values does it represent?
– What’s the main message of our business?

While non-descriptive brand names such as Apple and Amazon have value in the billions, in titling blog posts, we’ve found at Say It For You, it’s best to tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em and then – deliver!

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