5 Magical Headlines to Make Your Blog Posts Go Viral

Writing your blog post can be a lot of work. But it’s usually not the part that gives you the most grief.

Your toughest job is coming up with the right title.

Because when your post lands in a subscriber’s in-box or in their Google reader, your title is competing with every other message, every other blog post, every other headline.

And each one is screaming, “Open me! Open me!”

That gives you scant seconds to pull your distracted reader in.

So what makes a headline that gets someone’s undivided attention in the crazy, gimmick-filled blogosphere? What makes a blog post go viral?

Not the hype.

Not any more. Your readers are too smart for that. They have been tricked into opening too many worthless articles and they won’t fall for it again.

5 headlines that can make your blog post go viral

Remember the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter books? The magical hat that could not only assign students to the right house at Hogwarts School, but predict the future?

I wish I had a Sorting Hat to try on my headlines and tell me which ones will soar and which ones suck. But since I don’t, here are 5 headline types that always work well for me.

1. Make a bold statement.

This one works because it goes against conventional wisdom. Everyone tells you that your goal should be to get thousands of readers and subscribers—the more the better. Right?

My post talked about not needing a huge audience of readers, about how it’s much better to develop a core, committed group of readers who love your stuff, who interact with you and other readers and who can’t wait to share your posts.

My post title:

Why Your Blog Doesn’t Need an Audience of Thousands

2. Make a confession or tell a secret.

When you make yourself vulnerable, you become more human to your readers, more approachable, more likable. And they feel like they are in the inside circle.

I decided to resurrect my absolutely awful first blog post, in hopes of inspiring my readers and showing them that they, too, will get better the more they practice this blogging thing.

My post title:

Confessions from CatsEyeWriter: 5 Things I’ve Learned Since My Stinky First Post

3. Propose a hot button problem but solve it backwards.

In my coaching, sometimes clients tell me they are afraid to leave a comment on a blog. They are worried that they won’t be able to think of anything to say. Or they will say something stupid. Or,  worse, yet, what if nobody notices their comment?

I could have written a title like, “10 Ways to Get Your Blog Comment Noticed.” That’s a good, helpful title, but it’s kind of boring. Here on For Bloggers, By Bloggers, I tackled it from the other end, the reasons your comments may not be recognized or responded to. A little healthy fear can be just the right motivation.

My post title:

10 Reasons No One Notices Your Blog Comment

4. Promise to answer an important question but don’t tell how.

At least half of the secret of a good headline is to keep your readers guessing. Tell them that you are going to solve a problem for them, but leave a little mystery in your title.

In my research, I read that most people quit blogging in the first 2-3 months. That was such an amazing stat to me that I began thinking about the reasons.  I called my theory The Princess Syndrome and wrote a post on how to fight the perfection demons when we blog.

My post title:

Why Most People Quit Blogging: The Princess Syndrome

5. Identify a big need and hint at an unusual solution.

Okay, this one isn’t quite out the door yet (it’ll be published on Carol Tice’s Make a Living Writing blog tomorrow), but it’s a twist on the problem-focused title. Most people want more subscribers for their blog.

In this post, I share the mindset I had with my blog when it was a baby: that I would blog as if I already had 1000 subscribers, and talk to that imaginary audience. I invented them. And I end the post with five ways to do that.

My post title:

Want 1,000 Blog Subscribers? Just ‘Invent’ Them.

What about you?

Have you discovered any interesting headlines that have worked in your blogging —title types that consistently do well?

Is it getting harder to come up with unique headlines that haven’t been used