Tossing Around the Terms to Tease Interest

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Their dad, Neil Krieger, had made up a word and had been using it ever since college to describe what happens when a grapefruit or orange squirts juice in your eye.  After he died, his children launched a digital marketing campaign to get the word “orbisculate” officially recognized in dictionaries.  Never having heard the word before, I definitely had a “squirt-in-the-eye” experience upon reading the title “Warning – This Fruit May Orbisculate!” in my copy of Reader’s Digest….

“Without a captivating, attention-grabbing title, Dale of bloggingherwy.com cautions, readers are less likely to click on your blog post.”   “People are always searching for comparisons between different things, whether it is products, software, ways of doing something, etc.”, she suggests.  At Say It For You, we do like using the “strange and unusual”, in both titles and content, to help spark readers’ curiosity.  On the other hand, we know, strange and unusual simply isn’t enough. Unless the information is somehow tied to the reader’s problem or need, unless the content makes clear why the writer cares about that information or why that information could make a difference to the reader, there can be no Call to Action.

In blogs or LinkedIn posts, as we teach at Say It For You, even the tone of the title constitutes a promise of sorts, telling the searcher whether the content is going to be humorous, satirical, controversial, cautionary, or simply informative. For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes, the title needs to contain keyword phrases. At the same time, an important purpose of the title is to induce searchers to read the post, and for that to happen, the title must arouse curiosity and interest.

In the case of that tantalizing title in my Reader’s Digest , two factors played a role in  the words quickly capturing my attention:

  • The word “warning!” itself served as a “grabber”.
  • The absurdity of the implication that a fruit could cause deadly harm spiked curiosity
  • The almost dire-sounding term “orbisculate” (Was this deadly fruit going to orbisculate me??)

While content writers’ ultimate mission is to address the needs visitors had typed into their search bars,” tossing around the terms” in order to tease interest can be an effective content marketing move.

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Do Your Titles Encourage Ear Reading?

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“We actually we read with our ears and our eyes, so we need to activate multiple senses,” the Integrated Learning Academy points out. In fact, as Psychology Today explains, “we don’t experience our senses individually. Rather, our brain meshes with our vision and hearing to create our conscious experience of the world.”

In reading through my copy of Kiplinger Personal Finance May 2025 issue this morning, I saw many illustrations of the power titles have to “catch” readers’ attention through sound.

In alliteration, a consonant sound is repeated. The words don’t need to be directly next to each other in the sentence, but when you read the line aloud, you “hear” the repetition. Three examples I noticed right away in the magazine were:

  • Staff Cutbacks reach the Social Security Administration
  • Walmart Woos Wealthy Shoppers
  • A Broad Bet on Innovation

The repeated sound can be a vowel, rather than a consonant; the term for that is “assonance”. In both these Kiplinger titles, the repeated sound is the “a”.

  • A Cap on Overdraft Fees Faces the Axe
  • Get Back on Track After a Divorce

Of course, I didn’t need to peruse that financial news publication in order to find alliteration and assonance – they’re everywhere. The title of an advertisement for children’s clothing at the Lunch Money Boutique, “Elevating Style and Celebrating Childhood” catches our ear with those “short E” and “long A” sounds. Many popular consumer product names are alliterative (think Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, PayPal).

As content creators, we teach at Say It For You, we can take advantage of the sounds of words to make titles of posts and articles more “catchy”, tempting readers to use both their ears and their eyes to engage with our messages.

Take time to create titles that encourage ear reading!

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Would You Go to See “Away We Go” on Broadway?

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Can you guess the original titles of these musicals? Alex Wood asks in Theater Mania, revealing some of the names originally considered for plays that went on to become Broadway hits.  “Oklahoma”, for example, was going to be named either “Away We Go!” or “Many a New Day”. “Mame” was supposed to be called “The Great Confession”, while “West Side Story” was going to hit the theatres as “America”. Recent blockbuster “Hamilton” was conceived as “The Founding Fathers”.

“Whether you are writing a creative piece or drafting a professional document, the words you choose have a significant impact on how your message is received,” Elite Editing stresses, advising content writers to “keep titles short and sweet to maximize readability”. In fact, the authors add, studies have shown that shorter titles receive more clicks and shares on social media.  While it’s important to engage your audience with creative and clever titles, remember that brevity is key.

Focus on one main benefit or point when crafting your title, the authors emphasize. A headline too gimmicky or vague might miss the message, so the trick is to strike a balance between engaging and informative.  For SEO-conscious headlines, use relevant, high-traffic words related to the subject, they add.

In our content marketing at Say It For You, we know that keywords and phrases help search engines make the match with what your business or practice has to offer. But, once you’ve been “found”, you have to “get read”, so the engagement value becomes an important factor. Still, no clever title can substitute for well-written, relevant content that provides valuable information to readers.

Would you have gone to see “Away We Go!” or “The Great Confession” on Broadway? We’ll never know.  What all content creators do know is how very important it is to engage readers “at first sight”. 

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Made-Ya-Read Trivia in Content Marketing

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I know I’m not alone in enjoying trivia. In fact, through my work in content marketing, I’ve developed the theory that readers’ curiosity is triggered when they’re presented with “idea bytes”. In fact, when it comes to blog content, I like to say, trivia is hardly a trivial matter. There are at least four ways trivia can be used to keep content fresh:

  •  defining basic terminology
  • sparking curiosity about the subject
  • putting modern-day practices and beliefs into perspective
  • explaining why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way

Of course, blog content needs to be about much more than trivia tidbits. The tidbit is simply the jumping-off point for the message. Almost two years ago, in the 2023 Almanac for Farmers & City Folk, I’d come across an article, spending the next couple of blog posts suggesting ways in which different types of business or professional practices might use the trivia I found in that article.  The piece happened to be about (of all things!) antlers on deer.

  • The fact that every spring male deer grow themselves a new set of antlers might be used by a company selling fire extinguishers, water filters or dried herbs, each of which should be replaced at least once a year.
  • The fact that Chinese medicine has used antlers for thousands of years to support bone health could inspire a blog for an orthopedic medical practice – or a vitamin supplement manufacturer.
  • The fact that deer use their antlers to compete with each other for mates and territory might be mentioned in a martial arts studio’s blog.
  • Since antlers fill an ecological role (once shed, they become an important source of calcium and other minerals to a variety of small animals) those facts might be used by any company to show ways in which they are environmentally aware.

Where, other than a Farmer’s Almanac, do you find trivia? Everywhere, actually – magazines, newspapers, TV, social media sites – you name it. One of my favorite sources is MentalFloss.com. Here are just a few of their recent gems and possible content uses for each:

  • Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was a wrestling champion. (Personal trainer? Gym? Physical therapist?)
  • Frederick Bauer invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one. (Snack food company? Funeral home?)
  • The 100 folds in a chef’s toque are said to represent 100 ways to cook an egg. (Grocery store? Cooking school? Home meal delivery service?)
  • The mobile phone throwing world championships are held in Finland. (Phone vendor? Travel company?)

No, you can’t make ’em buy. But in online marketing, it all starts with “made-ya-look” content.

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Self-Help Titles Teach Variety

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Browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble, I came across an entire three-shelf section of self help books. The variety of titles was astounding, perfect examples of how a single topic can be approached in a plethora of ways:. Here are just a few of the titles:

  • Already Enough
  • Wild Calm
  • Yay All Day
  • Wander the Stars
  • Slow Down, Take a Nap
  • What’s Behind the Blue Door
  • You Meet You
  • Always Change a Losing Game
  • The Other Significant Others
  • Atomic Habits

When it comes to content marketing, all the titles show above could be classified as “Huhs?”, meaning that each needs a subtitle to make clear what the book is actually about. “Oh!” titles, we teach at Say It For You, are self-explanatory, and from an SEO (search engine optimization) standpoint, make a direct connection to the query readers type into their search bar.

For either straightforward or “Huh?-Oh!” titles of blog posts, one way to engage readers is using the sound of the words themselves, repeating vowel sounds (assonance) or consonant sounds (alliteration), so that searchers use their sense of hearing along with the visual.

Just as titles “grabbed” me as a bookstore browser, it’s important to have “ringing” in blog post titles, we teach. Titles matter in two ways:

  1. For search – keywords and phrases help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.
  2. For engagement – after you’ve been “found”, you’ve gotta “get read”! (Of course, no clever title can substitute for well-written, relevant content that provides valuable information to the readers.)

But when blog content writers try being too clever, too general, or too cliched, that’s not good, either, Authormedia points out in “Top 5 Blog Title Mistakes Authors Make” The overriding criterion is whether you can deliver on your headline promise in the body of the post.

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