Copyblogger has given us a lot of good things. Hell, you don’t get over 15,000 subscribers by schlepping out sub-par content. I’ve learned a lot from reading the entries Copyblogger publishes. They’re interesting, engaging, and more often than not tell me something I don’t know. That said, Copyblogger has inadvertently contributed to a plague among bloggers: title-itis.
Now, everyone knows that a good entry title is essential, there’s no doubt about that. Blogs like Copyblogger have done a great job getting the blog-oh-sphere to pay more attention to its titles; giving them the TLC they so heartily deserve. But I fear that we bloggers have taken this advice too far. Everywhere I look, blog titles are all starting to look the same, they’re running together into one big hodgepodge of sameness. “X ways to accomplish Y goal”, “B things that will ruin C”, and so on and so forth.
Folks, the point of what Copyblogger and others are trying to get across is that you need to make your titles interesting and descriptive. Examples were given to illustrate the point, but they were not trying to give you a formula for creating entry titles.
In a world where everyone wants to know the secret formula to success, be it whatever field you find yourself interested in, we have lost ourselves. Success is not about doing what everyone else is doing, it’s about finding your own beat, your own drummer. Note that Copyblogger also has a lot of articles on improving your content. Yet I see far fewer people cranking out good content and far more people with samey-looking titles. Improving your entry titles is easy, quick and sometimes effective. Improving your content, however, is hard and slow. But unlike a witty entry title, great content will always be effective. Hence, we should focus more on content than titles.
Be different! Sure, write exciting blog titles, use formulas if you want also, but keep in mind that even the most interesting entry title can’t compensate for bad content. An eye-grabbing title may get people to knee-jerk click to your blog, but if then, they find lackluster content they’ll just as quickly click away to the next shiny object.
Obviously, the best combination is to have a great title and great content. That’s the magic bullet, if you will. But, speaking for myself, I can’t always find that special connection between title and content. In those cases, however, I would much rather have engaging, thought provoking content rather than a shiny title.
If I were to compare titles and content to a river one would be shallow, wide and fast running. The other would be narrow, deep and slow moving.
By all means, work on writing more interesting titles. But two pieces of advice from my humble keyboard: 1. don’t write ‘formula titles’. Be interesting, be engaging, but don’t be a ‘cookie cutter blogger.’ 2. don’t focus so much on titles that you neglect your content and vice versa.
