Oct
14
I Stumbled Upon this post at Rauru today that suggests when blogging that you should write your headlines before you write the actual post. Ikki says:
As I said on a previous post, headings are the first impression you make on your audience. Focusing on crafting a great headline for your blog post will entice them to keep reading what you have to say.
Furthermore, writing your headline first will help you keep your contents well-structured. What lies behind this statement is the fact that you’re developing your contents from the idea expressed in your heading – instead of backwards. This will keep your writing closely aligned to the engaging promise delivered by your headline to your readers.
I respect this strategy (and with all due respect to Ikki), and if it works for you than that’s great, but I find the opposite to be true for my own writing. I almost always write the post first and then determine what I think the headline should be based on what I have written. The biggest reason for this is that when I start writing, I don’t always know what I am going to say for the duration of the entire post, and therefore surprise myself in the end.
I understand Ikki’s point about keeping your post structured by starting with the headline. I could see how it might keep you focused on what you’re trying to say, but on the flipside, I like to be able to have free roam in my writing, and let it take me where it wants to go naturally. Sometimes I will find that I have written a different post than what I had originally set out to do, but that’s ok, because often times, it will turn out better than the original idea I started with.
To me, staying confined to your initial idea of what a post should be about can hinder your writing, and I just don’t see how that would benefit the finished product. That is unless you have been assigned a specific topic to write about with little room for your own thought, which could be the case in some instances if you are blogging for someone else.
This is just my opinion. What do you think? Which method do you prefer?
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In my opinion it doesn’t matter what comes first, as long as each individual part is of high quality!
Before writing that entry, I used to start my blog posts by writings its contents first and only then I’d focus on writing headlines. However, I often found myself trying to find a killer heading for my posts and sometimes it ended up being something gray.
Seeing that, I switched strategies and focused more on resuming the main idea of my yet-to-be-written post within the headline and develop it from that point. Personally, that technique has really helped me to keep consistency on my entries.
I must add that I’m not confining myself to this strategy at all – sometimes I prefer to focus on contents before thinking of a great headline. It all depends on my mood and how creative I’m feeling in the moment.
Anyways, as people say, what works for me might not work for you. I guess we all need to find our own ways to express what we feel to others.
Thanks for the link back
Will come back for more of your writing!
Hi Ikki,
Thanks for the response. I think you’re right when you say “we all need to find our own ways…”. The fact that we can share opposite strategies and the benefits of each, should only prove helpful for readers in the long run and help people think about their own strategies, and things they could be doing differently.
In other words, as long as we get some wheels turning, I guess that’s all that really matters.
Chris
Both are legitimate. Sometimes the headline is the idea that generates the content and at other times the contents demand some thought about what to call the post. I use both, though, I must confess that the first alternative seems to happen more often than the other.
Regardless of whether you think of the title first or the content, what you are bringing up at the end is your structured throught. So it hardly matters what to think first.
And even when you start off with the title, actally what’s being visualized in your mind is ‘what the post should contain’!
~Ajith
I’m more to Chris’. Additionally, after I write the article, I look for a couple of words in the article I can replace with keywords. And then creating the optimized title.
For those who are trying to provide a good ‘value post’ content and length need to be confined in a thought structure.
I believe starting with an thought or ‘category and tags’ in mind is the best approach. The headline should be last, because you need to make sure keyword are represented strongly in the title. How else will you grab that organic readership?
I think it depends on how well we are able to post for the various styles. The better we are at one, the easier it will be and thus I don’t think the headline should always go first.
It is not necessary that headline should always come first. If the post has something unique which is never heard or seen than it should be considered whether it is written at the bottom of the statement.
I do both lol depending on the post. Typically though I agree with you, and I write the post first, and then write the article. But I spend alot of time choosing the titles, because that’s one of the things you can rank for in google. A good title, is essential for a post to do well. Though it’s not as important as a good post, the title is also very crucial because like you said it’s the first thing you see.
Jonathan Muller
The title is definitely a very important part. I think for me, I am able to come up with a better one once I get out my entire post.
Sometimes the headline is the idea that generates the content and at other times the contents demand some thought about what to call the post. I use both, though, I must confess that the first alternative seems to happen more often than the other.
I am agree, headline is very important for writer and visitor….focus and to make articles structure better