How To Tips

I am a big fan of bloggers doing paid reviews. When done right, everyone wins–the blogger who gets paid, the advertiser who gets exposure and constructive criticism, and the readers who get a recommendation.

I’ve been reading the comments to the paid reviews John Chow has been doing on his site. John’s reviews come with a healthy dose of constructive criticism while at the same time highlighting the best parts of his advertisers’ products/services/sites. He does a thorough review and it shows that he’s clearly evaluated his advertisers’ product/services/sites. I think this is part of the reason why he gets so many ReviewMe review requests and, of course, I’m a huge fan of John Chow!

When the review is for a product/service/site that is on-topic with the entrepreneurial nature of his blog (i.e., problogging and making money online), the reviews are very well received (as evidenced by my blog’s overwhelmingly positive response which I will post about shortly). On the other hand, when the review is for something not on-topic, many of John’s subscribers feel free to let their irritation show in their comments and votes. One even alluded to the paid reviews being a “sellout” tactic on John’s part.

While I certainly don’t think John has done anything to sell out his readers (on the contrary, I think he goes out of his way to take care of them), not offending my readers would be one of the reasons why I wouldn’t take on certain reviews (i.e., I wouldn’t want my readers to feel like I’m selling out their loyalty for a chance to earn more money). I’m sure that’s one reason why many bloggers haven’t jumped on to the paid-for-posting bandwagon popular of late. But, I don’t think it needs to be that way and all it takes is a little tweaking of the focus of the paid reviews to make even “off-topic” reviews be “on-topic”.

I think many people feel paid “off-topic” reviews are off-putting because these reviews have a “push-product” particularity to them in that they sound like promotions or advertisements much like commercials you see on TV or hear on the radio (i.e., they don’t really relate to the TV show you are watching or the music you are listening to).

Suppose I had a blog about making money on the Internet. Instead of rejecting “off-topic” reviews for fear of offending my readers, these reviews can easily be tweaked to focus on how the advertisers’ products/services/sites make money or how they can implement improvements to earn more money, convert better, get more subscribers, etc., because, after all, my blog is all about making more money online. As I’m doing that, I can intertwine the advertisers’ features into the review so that that aspect is also promoted. Now, I’ve answered my critics–I’m not selling out my readers because I’m offering reviews that are centered around money-making online. Get it? Great!

Let’s take if further, suppose now you have a site about your favorite football team. You get an advertiser who wants to pay you to review his hot tub business. The dilemma is how to accept the review, make money and not irritate your readers with off-topic posts. Here’s how I’d do it:

1. Accept the review.
2. Learn as much about his hot tub business as possible.
3. Do research on how to link the hot tub business to the football team.
4. Write a review and tweak it so that it is “on-topic”. An idea would be to connect football injuries to the therapeutic effects of hot tubs (hopefully the advertiser has information on the therapeutic effects of hot tubs on healing sports injuries directly on his site). Include constructive criticism (e.g., maybe there are better ways to treat sports injuries than sitting in a hot tub).
5. Collect the money.
6. Keep everyone happy!

In this case, everyone is happy–the advertiser is happy because he got a great review and exposure, the blogger is happy because he made money, and the readers are happy because they learned about how their favorite footballers can treat their sports injuries by using hot tubs from the advertiser.

This might not work on all sites but I definitely think it’ll open the doors up to making “off-topic” reviews more “on-topic.”

What are your thoughts?

In college, I studied business management and it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. There was something I found interesting about how businesses (and those who advise them) went about analyzing organizational issues in attempts to become more profitable. There are many stakeholders of businesses–shareholders, customers, suppliers, the public, the environment, etc.–that needed to be addressed in any major business decision. Fortunately, there are an abundance of people who are willing to offer their advice (for a fee, usually). So, it is not unusual to see me pick up a business magazine or book and draw inspiration from it for my blogging.

Let’s take a look at the titles of some business books and see if we can use them to help our blogging:

“Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”
This title gives us inspiration to write a post about qualities of successful people/businesses/entities in our blog niche. For example, if my blog was about a particular football (American) team, I might be inspired to write about the successful habits of perennial Super Bowl champions and what sets them apart from the also-rans.

“Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap… And Others Don’t”
This title gives us inspiration to write a post about why some people/businesses/entities in our blog niche are merely good, but not great. For example, if my blog was about innovative Web 2.0 companies, I might be inspired to write about the qualities I believe set those that will become household names from others that will fade into oblivion.

“Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion”
This title might give us inspiration to write a post about how persuasion might influence the people/businesses/entities in our blog niche. For example, if my blog is about word of mouth marketing, I might write a post about how persuasion tactics affect the psychology of customers and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage.

“The First 90 Days: Critical Success Factors For New Leaders At All Levels”
This title might give us inspiration to write a post about critical success factors in the niche that we blog in. An example of this is my post Key Success Factors For Any Blog.

“Fourteen Management Principles From The Greatest Manufacturers”
This title might give us inspiration to write a post about a list of management principles from great people/businesses/entitites in our blog niche. For example, if my blog is about some aspect of medicine, I might write a post about The Fourteen Time Management Principles From The Highest Paid Surgeons.

“Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man”
I like this title! Darren Rowse used something similar in his post Secret Confessions Of A Link-A-Holic.

“Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team”
This title might give us the inspiration to blog about challenges to success in our blog niche. For example, if my blog is about pre-arrranged marriages, I might be inspired to blog about The Five Dysfunctions Of A Pre-Arranged Marriage. [Note: I'm not putting out a personal stance on pre-arranged marriages; just using it as an example! ]

“America’s Most Admired Companies”
This title might give us the inspiration to blog about people/businesses/entities we most admire and why. For example, for my blog, I might blog about The Internet’s Most Admired English-Language Bloggers.

I hope this gives you some inspiration for your blogging. Next time you are at the bookstore, pay a visit to the business books section!

Here are some reasons I think why people subscribe to various blogs:

1. Enlightenment. The blogger comes at issues from a different perspective and in the process imparts upon us new knowledge that was previously hidden in plain sight. I would like to think that my article on fool-proof brainstorming is an example of a post that is enlightening to my readers.
2. Confrontation. The blogger holds views that are controversial to the mainstream thinking and uses a combination of imagery and words to get their point across. The allegations in the posts are so shocking that they compel the reader to come back to the site time and time again to find out more. Examples of sites that confront its readers include Michele Malkin’s Hot Air and Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report.
3. Entertainment. The blogger who wants to entertain its readers blogs about gossipy news. Examples include both celebrity paparazzi sites like TMZ and The Superficial, and tech news sites like Gizmodo and Engadget.
4. Motivation. Readers in this case read the blog because it motivates them to do more for themselves, whether that be to lose more weight, earn more money or become a more well-balanced individual. John Chow’s blog is an example of a blog that motivates its readers to earn more money from blogging. His hidden message is if an evil person like himself can make a lot of money blogging with little startup, why can’t you?
5. Affirmation. We seek friends who share our beliefs. The blog becomes a medium that affirms our beliefs and comforts us knowing that there are others who also share the same beliefs. The blog becomes a medium that allows us to commiserate and discuss our beliefs. The most obvious example of an “affirmation” blog is a blog centered around a religion.
6. Titillation. These types of blog readers are obvious. An example of a titillation-themed blog is Gawker’s Fleshbot (link is NSFW).
7. Vicarious Experience. Celebrity-gossip blogs are blogs that offer vicarious experience. A reader experiences what it is like to be a celebrity through the blog postings that follow their daily living. Another example of a blog that offers a vicarious experience is a travel-log keeping periodic entries of a traveler or a climbing blog following the exploits of a group of mountaineers scaling Mount Everest (e.g., www.mounteverest.net).

There can be more than one reason why a reader visits a blog repeatedly. Thus, it’s important to identify as many reasons as possible and use those to guide our posting. Does this advice sound strangely familiar? If you read my post on fool-proof brainstorming, it is the foundation for the Visitor Grid method of brainstorming outlined in that post. As probloggers, it is obvious that if we know why people are coming back to visit time and time again, we can focus our posting and make sure we post only what our readers want to read.

Want to read why people unsubscribe from blogs? Read Darren’s post on that subject.

You have a blog. You consider yourself a blogger–heck, a “pro-” blogger even. Do you consider yourself a journalist?

I like this definition of “journalist” from Wikipedia: “A journalist is a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people.”

By that definition, a blogger who blogs regularly must be considered a journalist. Even a person who reports about nonsense (like the journalists for The Onion) are journalists by that definition. We can split hairs about whether a person who reports untruths or non-truths is really a journalist in the traditional sense but the fact is that even the blogger who takes a satirical position is influenced by current events, trends, issues and people in his or her blogging.

Having premised that a blogger as we traditionally understand him is also a journalist, how many of us actually study journalistic techniques and reporting? I’d gather not many.

Yes, blogging is a fluid medium influenced by the particular writing styles of the individual blogger. The blogger has his own voice, perspectives and experiences that he shares through his writing. But I think we can all work on the “dissemination” part of the definition of journalism above.

Studying journalism techniques allows us to learn writing styes that are particular to certain industries. The sports writer/blogger tries to convey action, the excitement of the moment, the emotional highs and lows of winning and losing. In contrast, the political blogger uses a lot of satire and opinion. Whereas, the technology blogger wants to convey feelings of anxious anticipation for a new product.

In my opinion (and of course you are all welcome to disagree), we bloggers focus too much on getting the latest scoop, generating the best linkbait, speaking our minds on everything under the sun. We spend too little time on the ways in which to communicate to our readers in order to best get our message across. Sometimes, telling a story is the best way to inspire your readers. Other times, absolute satire is the way to get a point across.

My proposal to you is that we should all study the journalistic techniques of various genres (sports, technology, politics, etc.). Maybe it helps to look at mainstream media blogs to see how their writers use words to convey emotion in their posts. Maybe we can visit the bookstore and pick up some genre-specific newspapers or magazines. Let’s think about how they write, how they blend words, how they conjure up images in our minds with their sentences. I’d gather there would be a lot we can learn.

Here’s a link to get you started: visit Poynter Online (a site dedicated to making better journalists) and study their tutorials. I guarantee we can all learn something from traditional journalistic techniques to improve our blogging.

Dave Pelz is a great teacher of golf. When he started teaching golf way back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were a lot of teachers of golf already. He could have set up a golf school and taught golf to the masses like everyone else but instead he focused on a different market. Dave’s target market was teaching already good golfers how to lower their scores by focusing on these golfers’ short game. [The "short game" is golf parlance for after the golf ball is first struck but before the player starts to putt.]

Dave realized by the time he got onto the scene, there were many more established golfing instructors and academies already. He knew he’d have a hard time competing with these more established instructors and academies. But, golf was what he knew and loved and he wanted to make a go of it.

Instead of trying to compete directly with the establishment, Dave focused on a niche area of golf that was underserved. That underserved market was the good golfer who already knew how to play well generally but who would have breakdowns on the course that would lead to disastrous scores. These golfers wanted to lower their scores and they were Dave’s target market.

By focusing on this underserved market, Dave established his own proprietary teaching methods, mined data and statistics that highlighted weaknesses in the golfers’ games, and became a golfing guru known famously for his focus on the golfers’ short game to lower scores. Since he first started serving that underserved segment, Dave Pelz has gone on to write many books, open many schools (just dedicated to his particular niche of golf) and helped Phil Mickelson win his first major golf championship, The Masters.

Why is this relevant to blogging you ask? Because Dave’s story demonstrates that in even a crowded market, there are opportunities to differentiate what your blog is about from every other blogger’s blog out there. Dave Pelz didn’t try to open another general golf school and teach the same stuff as all the other golf schools out there before him, he focused on a particular segment of the market, studied that market intensely, discovered that market’s unaddressed needs and then devised his own solutions to meet those needs.

I propose to you that blogging about a topic is, in many ways, no different. You want to blog about a particular topic but as you survey the competitive landscape you realize it is a crowded field. Surely, you don’t want to add to the “echo chamber” and be just another blogger in that niche. Instead, really look carefully to see if there is an underserved segment of that niche you can address and then strive to be the best blogger in that segmented niche (of the main topic niche).

Examples:

First example: Instead of having a gadget blog about all the latest gadgets, how about a blog about the latest gadgets and which celebrities own them. So, in that case, the niche topic is “latest gadgets” and the segmented niche is “celebrities who own the latest gadgets”. You can even further segment by gender, nationality (e.g., Hong Kong celebrities), etc.

Another example: A blogger wanting to focus on Second Life (online simulation that’s been getting a lot of press recently) may want to concentrate entirely on blogging about how to start a profitable business in Second Life instead of covering general Second Life news.

I’m really letting the cat out of the bag on this one. I’ve been using Adsense as a monetization stream for over two years now and one thing that I discovered was how to skyrocket my Adsense click through ratio (CTR) using a very specific web page layout. A web page layout that I really stumbled upon by accident while I was redesigning my own sites. It’s not a page layout I use on any of my sites now because I have different priorities for them than I did before (i.e., maximizing CTR is not one of my priorities at this point). But, if you are solely concerned with CTR on Adsense or similar contextual (or even non-contextual) ads, you should read on…

[Note: Below, in order to provide context and for completeness, I first discuss common blog designs then discuss consensus optimization techniques. If you just want to get to the meat of this post, skip those two sections to the section entitled "Introducing the Killer Four Column Layout Strategy".]

The Current Common Designs

Most blogs have a two column layout. One column for the main posts and one column for the navigation and links. The default Kubrick Wordpress template is a prime example of a classic two column layout.

Another type of common layout is the three column layout with main center column. In that case, the main posts are in the middle column with two, less-wide, side columns for navigation and links. Here’s an example of the classic three column layout.

Finally, there are the layouts with three columns where the main column is at the far left and two smaller columns containing shorter articles or links grouped together on the right. The Blog Herald and the Engadget have this layout.

The Current Consensus Thinking On Adsense Ad Optimization

Google has an official guide dedicated to helping you maximize your revenues from Adsense. [You can find it here.]

Besides Google, others recommend that:

• Borders be removed
• Ads have classic blue links
• URLs of the advertisers have a color similar in tone to the background color (but not identical since you are not allowed to obscure any part of the ad completely)
• Text of the ads be black
• Background color of the ads match the page’s background color
• Use the largest ad size possible
• Use images next to the ads (though for Adsense this is now specifically disallowed)
• Place the first ad block “above the fold”

Introducing The Killer Four Column Layout Strategy (KFCLS)

Layout Design

With the basics out of the way, let’s move on to the heart of this post.

I’ve found that the most effective page layout that generated the highest click through ratio was quite unconventional and something I’ve never seen before (or since, for that matter). In my attempt to create a “newspaper-like”, tabloid layout for a gadget-focused blog, I created an index page layout that was four columns wide.

The middle two columns had the main posts for the blog while the two side columns were each half as wide as a main post column. The two side columns contained navigation links and links to my recent posts, top posts, etc. There was also a row that spanned the width of the main post columns after the first two “boxes” where I also had Adsense ads. Finally, the whole content area was 800 pixels wide to fit the lowest resolution screen monitors.

Insertion of ad boxes were in the first main content box, the row that spans the width of the main post columns and finally the box that is kitty-corner to the other ad. The final layout was like this:

Effect On Ad Performance (CTR)

I have to be careful to not violate the Google Adsense TOS so therefore my discussion here is in the hypothetical. These don’t represent any CTRs on any of my sites but, rather, are my conclusions based on my analyses of a number of factors and from a number of sources.

In general, I believe most sites with Adsense-friendly content generate a CTR of, on average, 3 percent to 7 percent. Depending on the source of advertising, this can be very significant in terms of aggregate revenue. However, I believe from my own analyses, CTR can be increased 300 percent to 500 percent with the implementation of the KFCLS on the home page of a site/blog. Therefore, a page with a CTR of 3 percent otherwise could improve to up to 15 percent and a page with a CTR of 7 percent otherwise could improve to up to 21 percent.

Here is the heat map of a site with the KFCLS implemented, compared to the official Google Adsense heat map:

One final thought, I found that adding pictures to the posts contributed to the increased CTR.

Why This May Not Work For You

You may implement this and find that it doesn’t work. I’m not guaranteeing that this will work for your blog/site or for any blog/site. I’m merely sharing my conclusions.

In general, I expect the following types of sites will find implementing the KFCLS beneficial:

• Sites focusing on a specific consumer product/topic area
• Sites where visitors come from searches from the search engines
• Sites that already have good CTR and earnings
• Sites that have a majority of visitors from MSN (since these visitors tend to click the most)

In general, I expect the following types of sites will not find the implementation of KFCLS to have a significant impact on their CTR:

• Sites without a clear focus
• Sites that don’t focus on a consumer product/service
• Sites that have a majority of repeat visitors (since repeat visitors tend not to click as much)
• Sites that have a majority of visitors from Google (since theses visitors don’t click as much as compared to Yahoo or MSN)

Conclusion

What I’ve revealed may not only be applicable to Google Adsense ads, but may also increase the CTR of other ads, both contextual and non-contextual. However, I only tested the KFCLS with Google Adsense ads. Also, I generally don’t like blogs/sites that are 800 pixels wide. While at one time, designing for that width made sense, most monitors now display much higher resolutions. You may be able to implement the suggested changes and see different results for different proportions.

Finally, A Plug For Me And I Help You Blog Plus An “Extra”

If you liked this post, you can expect more posts like it that help you monetize your blog/site. Please visit the archives for my other posts and also remember to subscribe via RSS or email.

Also, I’ve made this posting available for download in a nicely formatted PDF. You might want to download and file that PDF as a reference or give it to your designer/coder. However, it is only available via my RSS subscription. This is my enticement for you to subscribe!

Thanks for visiting!

Do you struggle with coming up with original ideas for your blog posts? Want to get out of the “echo chamber” and not just report repeat news that’s been posted everywhere else? Yes? Great! You’re in luck today because I’m going to share with you my fool-proof, idiot-proof method of brainstorming great ideas for your blog that, chances are, nobody else may have thought about. Bring originality to your blog posts, increase readership and add value to your existing readers with “The Visitor Grid” method of brainstorming!

Brainstorming why your visitors are visiting your blog will help to focus your blog post topics, writing style, and traffic generation and monetization techniques. It is important to be able to “connect” with your reader and having a big brainstorming session before writing does that.

[Incidentally, Copyblogger has a post that expands on why connection with your reader is important in this post.]

It’s with those thoughts that I’ve been thinking about how to better make my posts be more responsive to visitors’ wants and needs, and I’ve come up with my own solution. It’s called the “Visitor Grid” and it helps me to focus my blog posts and laser-target the tone, writing style and topic of my posts.

Visitors to your blog visit because they are “looking” for something (a “need”) and “want” some result.

Blog visitors may be looking for/need:

• Information about people, places, things or services
• Opinions and/or reviews of people, places, things or services
• Like-minded people who share common interests and beliefs
• Funny, sad, provocative news about people, places, things or services
• Tutorials that teach them how to do stuff

Blog visitors may want:

• To be entertained
• To be re-affirmed in their beliefs
• To be helpful
• To be confronted
• To be enlightened

When I’m brainstorming ideas for posts, I match up those needs and wants in a system called “The Visitor Grid“.

How to Create The Visitor Grid

Make a big grid of six columns across by six rows down. Write in the boxes on the top row each of the things a visitor to your blog may be looking for. Write in the boxes in the first column each of the things your visitor may want from visiting your blog.

Once you’ve done that, you should have a table with “wants” in the left most column and “things visitors are looking for” (a/k/a “needs”) in the top row.

For example, say your blog is about gadgets. In that case, visitors may come to your blog looking for/need:

• Information about gadgets
• Opinions and/or reviews about gadgets
• Like-minded people who also have an affinity for gadgets
• Funny, sad, provocative news about gadgets
• Tutorials that teach them how to tweak gadgets

Using the Visitor Grid, place each of those bullet points in the boxes on the top row. Then, down the first column, list your visitor wants (you can use my list above or create your own) in each of the boxes. If you’ve done everything correctly, your visitor grid should now look like this:

Next, fill in the boxes with ideas on how you will match up a visitor’s wants with what that visitor is looking for (i.e., his/her “needs”). For example, your completed grid could look like this:

Now all there is to do is to focus your posts so that you are blogging about a topic from the top row that matches a need from the leftmost column.

For example, a visitor who is looking for opinions and/or reviews about gadgets may be looking because he wants to be confronted with different uses of the gadgets than intended. So, based on the Visitor Grid, you could focus your post on a review of a gadget that is being used in a different way than it was intended.

Here’s a real life example: John Chow has a posting about how an Ipod could be used as a source of power for a vibrator.

Another great feature about the Visitor Grid is that a properly filled out grid will allow you to laser focus your news search efforts on the topics that match the visitor needs/wants grid box. Also, you’ve just outlined ideas for 25 great posts.

Does the Visitor Grid get your creative juices going? If so, what are you waiting for? Get blogging!

There are always improvements one can make to increase his or her blog’s “worth”. If we define the “worth” of a blog to mean the value that that blog provides to its visitors, here are five things you can do now to make your blog more worthy:

1. (Re)Focus your “About” page into a mission statement. A mission statement is a statement of intent. It outlines what the blog’s goals are and addresses its position today in terms of reaching those goals.  A great mission statement identifies the blog’s target audience (i.e., its “customers”) and the critical processes unique to your blog that you believe will determine its success or failure. Finally, a great mission statement defines a blog’s unique characteristics that sets it apart from the crowd.
2. Evaluate and periodically re-evaluate your blog against benchmarks. Benchmarks are standards by which your blog should be judged and compared. You determine your blog’s benchmarks by looking at its mission statement and identifying those periodic benchmarks that you feel are the marks of a successful blog, consistent with that mission statement. By identifying a set of appropriate benchmarks, you will be able to make adjustments in the blog’s strategy and focus from time to time. Benchmarks can (but do not have to) mean number of subscribers, links or Technorati citations within some predetermined period of time, say, over every six months.  Benchmarks can also be more personal such as a posting goal per month.  If a blog consistently fails to meet and exceed its benchmarks, it is an indication that it may be time to consider retiring it or refocusing it.
3. Give supporting information in your posts. Blogs postings are full of opinions, ideas and arguments. But the very best posts are those that provide supporting information to back up those opinions, ideas and arguments. The more supporting information your blog postings have, the more useful your posts are and the more credible your positions become. An easy way to provide supporting information is by linking to related posts by you, or by others that you either agree or disagree with, or that present an opinion, idea or argument that expands on your posting.
4. Refresh old posts with new information. It’s easy to make a posting and then forget about it. But old posts form the corpus of your blogging body of work that is (hopefully) referred to by visitors well into the future. In order for your posts to have relevance tomorrow as it does today, you have to go back periodically and update old posts with new information. For example, search engine optimization posts are particularly susceptible to changes in approaches and attitudes. Updating old posts provides your visitor with more useful content than if those posts were left in your blog’s archives as mere memorializations of your past thoughts.
5. Show new relationships between ideas from your best posts past. Rarely are ideas completely distinct from one another. An easy way to set yourself apart from the pack is to be more comprehensive than your competitors. You can be more comprehensive in your niche (i.e., be more of an expert) by showing, for example, how two seemingly different ideas can co-exist. Or, by showing how two seemingly similar ideas cannot co-exist.

How’s that for a headline?! Brian Clark is clearly doing too good of a job because I’m seeing so many creative and attention-getting headlines like:

• The Ultimate Guide to [blank]
• 12 Sure-Fire Ways to [blank]
• The Secret of [blank]

And therein lies my beef.

The “Ultimate” guide turns out to be less than ultimate. The “12 Sure-Fire” ways aren’t very “sure-fire”. And the “Secret” of [blank] wasn’t such a big secret and was actually quite a letdown.

Does anyone remember some famous marketer say that he would reveal “The Single Biggest Mistake You Could Make That Will Doom Your Online Business Before It Even Gets Off The Ground”? And the only way you could find out was to purchase his $247 package of marketing materials?

Well I sure did! And bought his package I did too! Express delivery thank you very much! And then… I found out what his big “Secret” was (with a capital “S“). I’m going to reveal it to you now…

It was… (drum roll please)… “Not Researching Your Market Before You Start Your Online Business”!

Ok, I admit it was an important point to make but, seriously, wasn’t it a little over-hyped? Boy, did I ever have a let-down! If it wasn’t such a hassle to return the whole package, I probably would have. I was like, “Gee, thanks for giving me some really useful advice pal (not).” Not only was it over-hyped, it also wasn’t particularly helpful in terms of laying out the steps on how I was to research my market.

To the point of this post–using attention-grabbing headlines but then underdelivering on the content will kill your blog’s reputation. How many times did you click on a blog posting with a juicy, watery, itching to be clicked headline… only to be disappointed in the content when you clicked through and read the post? I’m sure I’m not the only one.

And the feeling I got was “how fast can I hit the ‘Back’ button so I can get the hella outta here!” That blog and whoever posted it was mud to me. I will never visit or link to that blog in my entire blogging life.

Not exactly the kind of feeling you want to convey to your visitors. But, I see a lot of blogs do this–overhype and underdeliver. If you are going to use an attention grabbing headline, make sure you really have the content to back it up. There’s nothing more disappointing to your visitor than feeling like a sucker for clicking through. For example, if you are rehashing advice you saw in six other places, it ain’t a “Secret” anymore!

Also, please don’t over-do it with the attention-grabbing headlines even if you do think you are giving the most awesome advice, secrets, whatever, out in the blogosphere. Because there is nothing worse than going to a blog and seeing nothing but attention-grabbing headlines everywhere. The feeling it conveys is like being at a flea market where you are the only customer and there are a thousand eager-to-take-your-money sellers pitching their products.

One last thing, the best posts with attention-grabbing headlines are the ones that, in addition to delivering on the goods, also make the reader feel that if the advice didn’t work for him, it was because of something he, the visitor, did or didn’t do and not the other way around.

Your thoughts? I would really appreciate some examples of great posts that use attention-grabbing headlines. (I’d rather not embarrass anyone so please don’t post comments that identify poor posts!)

Want to know what else will kill your blog–head over to Problogger for Darren’s list of 10 mistakes that will kill your blog.