The #1 Headline Blunder Every Writer Makes (we’ve all done it)
Curated from: entrepreneurshandbook.co
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Don’t self-sabotage your brilliant blog post with a headline like this
A gerund is a noun birthed from a verb by adding -ing to the end. Examples of gerunds at the beginning of headlines include:
- Bringing the power of AMP to Gmail
- Tackling Inequality With an Entrepreneur’s Eye
- Making Interactive Art
- Fostering Independence, One Student at a Time
- Recovering from Historical Amnesia
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Why starting your headline with a word that ends in “-ing” is a big mistake
It may not seem like a big deal, but results show that if you want to write a top blog post you should drop the gerund starter. Here are the three reasons why:
First, headlines that start with a gerund are ambiguous.
Second, headlines that start with a gerund are not reader-centric.
Third, headlines that start with a gerund are weak.
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The Ing Titles Are Useless
And that’s exactly how the articles get their boring titles:
- Launching Our New iOS App
- Reviewing 2017 and Looking Ahead to 2018
- Solving the Problem of Poverty in Third-World Countries
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See What Happens Without The ING
- This New iOS App Will Make You Sleep Better Than Ever Before
- What 2017 Taught Us About Vulnerability and Why 2018 Will Be a Little Scary
- 4 Ways Cash-Poor Millennials Can Still Feed the Hungry in Uganda
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4 tips to write captivating headlines that get more reads
- Create a “curiosity gap.”
- Put “How to” in front.
- Pick a niche and be specific
- Chop off the “-ing” and use the base verb to make it an imperative.
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