The Writer's Block

by Alyssa Ast

Recently, I saw a headline linking to a breaking news article that had been posted on Facebook. At first glance it appeared normal and not very interesting. But, then I took a second look and saw the title was full of typos. The thing that got me was the fact the article was being ran by a well known online publication. How could this possibly slip by? Although the headline wasn't that attractive in the first place, now I just had to read the article to see if it was as poorly written as the title. Luckily, it wasn't but still, what a way to catch some one's attention-- with typos in the headline. This got me thinking about my own titles and leaves me wondering, do my titles turn you off?

Struggling with Titles
I consider myself to be a creative person. Being a writer, you have to be creative to a certain extent, but one area I completely lack creativity is with developing that eye catching and intriguing title that makes people say, "Wow! I have to read that!" I'm not kidding, I really suck at coming up with titles. I know what you're supposed to do to create a great title, and I can throw title advice at you all day long, but some how I can never seem to pull it off. Maybe it's the SEO voice in the back of my head that nags at me to avoid "useless" words in the titles, but it's certainly an area I would like to improve.

After seeing this headline with the typos and realizing if a bad title is enough to draw attention to my article, a great title will draw even more. Yes, traffic is traffic, but I would much rather have traffic draw to my article because of a great title instead of to see if the article was as horrible as the title. I know I have been guilty of a typo or two in some of my titles, but after seeing this article, I'm determined to step it up and never allow it to happen again.

Creating great and engaging titles is now my new goal. I know I can pull it off. I have to pull it off. I know I'm just missing something small that's hindering my ability to create awesome titles.

Do you have difficulty creating awesome titles? If you don't, let me hear your tips because I need all the help I can get!

Happy Writing!

Creating Titles: Do my titles turn you off?