How the baby that ate its own head can help you get readers and links

Image Every day the baby helps bloggers, columnists and journalists get front page exposure for their content . Well, OK, it’s not really the baby. It’s that undeniable urge that compels us to read the article about the baby. It’s the same thing that killed the cat…yep folks, you’ve got it - it’s…curiosity.

In his book “Tested Advertising Methods,” John Caples lists curiosity headlines as one of three successful headline types. So, let’s familiarize ourselves with the curiosity factor and start reeling in those links and readers.

Irresistible headlines due to curiosity

These three headlines were taken from Digg’s Home page. In fact, more than 50% of the home page articles (at the time this article was written) relied heavily on the curiosity factor.

Blueprint For Dictatorship - Notice how the contrast between the feelings of order/security we associate with blueprints and the feelings of fear/instability we associate with dictatorship make this headline irresistible. Isn’t this headline much better than the obvious - “America is becoming a dictatorship”.

Anti-piracy group pirated my data - It’s the tale of David catching the thieving Goliath red-handed. You absolutely have to know what happened. This title is all good.

Marijuana Shrinks Tumors, Government Knew In 1974 - If you are a cancer patient, a marijuana smoker or a fan of conspiracy theories, you cannot resist reading this article.

How to use the curiosity factor to create irresistible blog posts

This technique has three steps:

  1. Mine Digg/Reddit/Netscape for a curiosity headline (not news headlines) - go to the Digg home page. Look at the articles that became popular in the last 7/30 days. Select one that is not news-oriented.
  2. Figure out what makes this headline unique - Try to understand why this headline is so compelling and if there is an underlying pattern to its drawing power.
  3. Remix the headline - Use the pattern to create new headlines.

Let’s do a couple:

Original Headline: How to tell if you are a fanboy
Underlying Pattern: How to tell if [you/someone close to you] are/is a [something that no one wants to be]
Remixed headlines: How to tell if you are a cold fish
How to tell if your boyfriend is a male chauvinist pig
How to tell if you are still stuck in the 80s

Let’s try another one:

Original Headline: Condemned To Google Hell
Underlying Pattern: Condemned to [Do no evil type of object/entity] Hell
Remixed headlines: Condemned to Hawaii Hell
Condemned to Candy Store Hell
Condemned to George Clooney Hell

So start weaving curiosity into your headlines and you’ll see those readers and links rolling in.

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Posted on May 21, 2007 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Blogging, Copywriting

Comments

3 Responses to “How the baby that ate its own head can help you get readers and links”

  1. Using Curiousity to build headlines « BizPeeps on May 21st, 2007 10:04 pm

    [...] Codswallop » How the baby that ate its own head can help you get readers and links [...]

  2. liz on June 6th, 2007 8:01 am

    this is very helpful. usually, my post titles are just off the top of my head and i don’t really give them much thought. you gave me pretty interesting ideas and inspired me to pay more attention to my titles. thanks.

  3. Yoav Ezer on June 6th, 2007 9:29 am

    Hi Liz,

    Thanks. I am glad I could be of some assistance

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