Welcome Guest!
Search
My Sites
Navigation Links
Copyright
All music on benbarden.com is free to share for non-commercial use only. Please see the music pages for more information.
All other content: Copyright © 2009 Ben Barden.
All Rights Reserved.
Quick Tips: Titles, opening paragraphs, closing paragraphs
< Quick Tips: Formatting the date, using images, and paragraph length | Quick Tips | Quick Tips: Colour schemes, choosing fonts, use your own banner >
Last week I trialled a new Quick Tips post. This had a good response, so expect to see one of these posts every week. For the rest of the week, I'll be writing standard blog entries... "Slow Tips"!This week I'm going to look at three things that are all closely related to one another.
Titles
The title you give to an article is really important. It should give the reader a good idea of what your post is about.It can take some time to master how to write good titles. Try to avoid titles that are vague, very long, very short, or that do not relate to the subject of your post.
It may seem like a big joke to write "FREE MONEY" as your post title and follow it up with "Now I've got your attention..." but all this does is mislead, confuse and frustrate your target audience.
Try to include a couple of strong keywords in your title - that is, words or phrases relating to the post that could be used to find your post on a search engine. But don't go overboard - you're writing for people, not search engines. If you can't get any keywords into your post title, it may still be a good title for your readers.
Opening paragraphs
Every post needs a strong opening paragraph - something that makes the reader want to keep reading.If you're someone who writes good content every day but you try to write your very best posts every Monday (just to give an example), that doesn't mean you shouldn't write good opening paragraphs for the rest of the week. Remember that the newest post appears at the top of your home page.
It's not just about keeping your existing readers interested - you also want to stop potential readers in their tracks, make them read, and convert them to a regular reader. A good opening paragraph in every post will help you do this.
Closing paragraphs
Sometimes it's good to leave a few points open for comment, either by your readers or in future blog entries. You don't have to explain every little detail to the point where you get so bogged down, you've forgotten what your point was.A good closing paragraph might provide an apt conclusion to your post, or it might raise several questions for your readers to ponder. Without a solid closing paragraph, your post is missing that final bit of polish.
What do you think?
Do you think you write good titles? Post some of your best, worst, or most unusual.How important is an opening paragraph to you, both as a reader and a writer?
What about closing paragraphs?
Have you tried changing the way you write your posts? If so, did you notice any change in the number of comments you received, or the amount that people wrote in their comments?
Related Content
Comments on Quick Tips: Titles, opening paragraphs, closing paragraphs
There's an art to putting the right attention-getting verbiage at the top of your article. When to pun, when to be serious, working to use vivid words, striving for clarity, brevity, pacing, avoiding too-brief "Tonto-speak" -- even whether to write a title (no verb) or a headline (includes verb). And there are styles of capitalization and stacking/size of text (hammer, kicker, deck, etc.). And I love it when I can find a way to use specific details, numbers, and superlatives in my titles.
There's a useful article at http://www.notrain-nogain.org/train/res/copyd/guide.asp that you or your readers might enjoy.
And there's a great collection of headlines (even though they do reveal journalism's weakness for the pun) at http://www.poynter.org/headline_of_the_day/ (be sure to follow the "more" link too)
Some of my better ones on my writing blog recently have been:
Savage Blog Cuts: Witness the Carnage
My Igloo’s Made of Kudzu, Cheese Toast, and Trixie Belden Books
5 Reasons the Best Writers Come from Mississippi
The worst pun I got away with as a newspaper reporter was the feature story on a dinosaur movie:
"You Can Bet Jurassic's Scary!"
** Great topic for today! **
Thanks for the comments. :)
Marcus, have you ever asked anyone to proof-read your content? That's another way to keep improving your writing skills. I'm not saying that you need to do this, but it might be worth looking into.
Carolyn, thanks for the supporting info - that article is really good. I will subscribe to your site so I can have a look at some of your posts.
Don't forget good grammar and proper spelling- nothing ruins a great professional looking/sounding paragraph quicker than a misspelled word. Professional credibility takes a dive straight out the window at that point.
Hi Cindy, thanks for the comment. Good point, although I was actually going to look at that in a future blog entry. This post is just a few quick tips - it's not a definitive list. :)
oh gosh, i fail at these. my titles are just spur of the moment thing, and when i look back, it just makes me laugh...sounded appropriate at the time... and i need to edit more often...it's true, one must be very careful in terms of constructing sentences and spelling them out...to get one's point across... but the hustle of urban living and that constant cup of coffee just makes you jittery enough to push the wrong letter...waaah!
Thanks for commenting, 13thWITCH. Sounds like you need to do some proof-reading! But I think it's better to read and re-read your article before you post, as some errors just shouldn't get out. As I said in comment #5, I'll be writing more about this soon.
Yup, that's a challenge for me at times; writing catchy headlines and paragraphs with proper grammar--especially since English is my second language. dictionary.com and tesaurus.com are my daily chaperons.
But because we have savvy markters and teachers around us I'm able to get my feet wet, one step at a time. :-)
~Marcus