Article Title Tip – Fear Inducement Gone Wrong
Tonight I saw an article titling convention or style that received complaints and I thought everyone could learn from it as a short case-study.
What the author did: After his article title, he would add a call to action such as “- An Absolute Must Read For You!” or “- You Don’t Want To Miss This!” or “- You Must Know This” or “- A Definitely Want To Know This”…and it goes on.
My theory on why it caused complaints: Because it’s insulting… and if the articles were good, they would not need an “urgency inducing agent” / fear inducing style like this to make them worth reading. It could just be me as I was turned off by the style as well. I perceived it as communicating: “You may be a dumb reader and because you are dumb, you don’t know what’s good for you, so let me tell you what’s good for you: reading my article.”
Agree/Disagree?
The trick to getting your articles read is to simply write about what your target audience wants to read.
Your articles are urgent to your readers if it’s something they want to know about! :)
[Reply]