The Art of Title Bait
January 29th, 2006 by Michael Gray in Ideas, Link Development, SEO, ToolsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
So now that everybody is talking about linkbait. I think it’s important to consider one of the important qualities of good linkbait, otherwise known as Title Bait.
What is title bait? Well it’s choosing a title that gets people to click through and read your full post, think of it as the equivalent of a big blinking red button with sign underneath it that reads “DON”T PUSH THE SHINY RED BUTTON”, no matter how hard you try you just can’t resist and you eventually push it. Creating a good piece of title bait involves a bit of creativity, and style, while not everyone can be a master, we all can get better at it. For example here are some examples of Title Bait I have done recently:
Six Degrees of a Lesbian Porn Scraper. A more descriptive title would have been Prominent Yahoo Blogger is 2 clicks from Adult Content, but well it couldn’t be much more boring than that. There’s no hook, no tease, no titilation, in short it’s just boring.
Yahoo: Yea We Suck and We Don’t Give a Damn!. If you didn’t know what Yahoo did before you saw this it’s pretty hard to ignore. If you did know you know it’s not going to be a touchy-feely love fest, and heck who doesn’t like a good rant every now and again.
25 Things You Should Never Write in Your Blog. Ever since Moses came down from the mount with the 10 commandments people have been using lists for viral marketing. I think it’s hardwired into our brains, use it to your advantage. Now there is some danger here for example “3 Things You Should Never Write in your Blog” is going to have to have 3 things that are powerful for it to be good. “1000 Things You Should Never Write in Your Blog” is too much for anyone to read, so chose your number wisely.
I also like to incorporate pop culture, famous quotes or concepts into my titles too. Change a few words, shift the focus, and it make it amusing. For example “Grandma’s Baklava Recipe” is clear but banal, but “I’ll be Baklava” while less clear is much more click able. “Spring Sunglass Trends in New York City” is clear but lacks pizazz, whereas “Specs in the City” has more intrigue without being too deceptive. “How to Sell Your House Without a Realtor” is lifeless compared to “Realtors … We Don’t Need No Steenking Realtors”. Now there are some who will say your irreverence and sarcasm may be amusing to some, but not everyone gets it or appreciates it, in fact some consider it downright unprofessional. To them I politely say … Bite Me! Seriously, I understand where you’re coming from, and agree there are some people who will be put off by that tone. If you don’t think you can be professional, informative, humorous all at the same time check out the Motley Fool, you may learn a thing or two while you are being amused.
Categories:( seo | seo | linkbait | linkbait | titlebait | titlebait | link.building | link.building)
Sphere It
January 29th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Great topic Gee-Dub…I just got done reading a pretty crappy book on creating good direct mail salesletters…the highlight was the section on titles that really worked, which gave me infinite ideas for title bait. I’ve put them up for future reference.
It’s amazing how far a good title will get you. Definitely immense value in crafting effective titles.
January 29th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
As SEO’s we get very little opportunity to convey a message. Title’s are our best shot.
Speaking of titles and linkbaiting, I think I pissed off a few of the V7N guys with my “v7ndotcom elursrebmem for Matt Cutts” campaign. I won’t sully your blog with a link drop but I’m convinced there aren’t many better linkbaiting titles than that and my “Save Matt Cutts” PPC campaign to the same effect.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Nice post..
the same principle applies to adwords by the way.
Go into any competetive field and ignore all the ads from the big companies ( more money than writing skill) and you will always find bootstraping entrepeneur that will show up in the top results by sheer writing skill.. without spending a gazillion $$
January 30th, 2006 at 11:15 am
[...] Linkbait, yea yea, Think about Title Bait - Gray Wolf. (see our experiment with this at #2 here) [...]
January 30th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Graywolf,
You should probably put both possible ways of spelling title bait/titlebait in this post so you rank for both - just like some people do with link bait/linkbait
January 30th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Thanks for this great post - I really enjoyed it
cheers, Christoph
January 31st, 2006 at 3:34 am
Very original idea, giving your articles dishonest titles like tabloids have been doing for ages.
January 31st, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Sweet. Title bait is really nice when you can incorporate the keyphrase while at the same time getting in that sarcasm & cynicism that we love so much. A title bait contest would be funny here, don’t you think? We could pick a keyphrase and take submissions…exactly why The Onion is so great…
“U.S. President Applies for Cash Advance Payday Loan”
“German Prime Minister Caught Playing Online Poker”
“Michael Jacko denied Home Mortgage Loan by Sears”
December 9th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
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