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Misleading Headlines: Do they work or do they hurt?

As I was flicking through my RSS feeds yesterday, I came across the following headline:

“Steve Jobs Leaves Apple”

Huh? Wow… well I know I haven’t read that anywhere else, but could this be a scoop?

Naively, I clicked on the link to be greeted with this opening paragraph:

“Steve Jobs is leaving Apple — eventually. Whether because of health, age, or any other reason, key employees leave companies. It happens everyday. What distinguishes a great company from a just a good company is how they plan for this eventuality.”

Well, duh!

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t impressed, particularly as for some reason the web site in question had decided not to publish an excerpt — let alone a full feed — for the article.

I can cope with less-than-scintillating prose so long as it’s related to the title and excerpt, but in my opinion this misleading headline was simply used to try and entice more visitors to the web site.

The thing is, I’m not convinced that a misled visitor is a happy one.

The article in question was about succession planning — something that I might have had a vague interest in but probably wouldn’t have clicked through to if I’d found it sitting in my feed reader.

Because it used a famous business leader who generates a lot of online buzz, particularly of late where his health is concerned, it potentially lured other readers in.

Are the articles at that web site well-written? In general it looks like a fairly professional outfit, so I’m guessing so.

However, does this little stunt make me want to subscribe to the RSS feed of that publication? No, not really.

No doubt the site will pop up again from time to time as I search for information, but it’s not on my list of favourite sites.

Perhaps I’m making too much of this, but I really don’t think creating deliberately misleading headlines is a good policy.

Controversial headlines: fine, so long as the article is on-topic and actually contentious.

Now, hand on heart, I can’t say that I’ve never published an article with a headline designed to lure visitors, but I hope that I haven’t deliberately tried to mislead people in order to get a few more click-throughs.

At the end of the day, the overall reputation of my site is more important than any short term gains gleaned from such tactics.

What do you think?

Tips for creating timely yet comprehensive blog posts

How can you break news in your niche and also ensure that your posts are comprehensive and of maximum benefit to your readers?

Blogging style certainly seems to have evolved over the past few years.

When I started blogging, there was a strong emphasis on writing blog posts and then not changing them afterwards. In fact, it was almost a cardinal sin to change anything — even a typo — after the author had published the post.

Perhaps that worked well for personal experience/diary blogs, but tended not to be as effective for niche subject blogs.

It’s quite common to see blog posts, both new and old, updated with new information over time, and I think that’s generally a good thing.

It’s this that can form the basis of writing articles that are both timely — they break news quickly — and comprehensive — they include in-depth opinion and links to other relevant articles both on and off the blog.

If you want to aim to break news in your niche but also create more detailed posts that last, I’d suggest the following:

  1. Write a short, succinct article that gets straight to the point, outlining the breaking news, and containing relevant keywords. Link to one source if applicable. Publish and ping.
  2. Ensure that you are using some kind of “related posts” plug-in. Although these aren’t perfect, they’ll provide the first readers to arrive at your article with a way of discovering other possibly relevant posts.
  3. Consider what additional information you want to include in this article. Perhaps you have an opinion forming about the topic, or have found other web sites/blogs that are worth linking to.
  4. Add to or even replace the original article with a more in-depth one, including manual links to other relevant information. Publish, ensuring that the permalink remains the same. This ensures that search engines and other sources that have already indexed your page will still send you visitors.
  5. If you often break news, it may be worth having a plug-in that pulls relevant headlines from other RSS feeds (assuming you have permission to use them) based on keywords you specify and publishes them alongside your articles.

Most major news organizations (BBC News, for example) create “Breaking News” pages as soon as the first pieces of information arrive, developing the page as new details emerge.

It may be more appropriate to create a new, in-depth post and link to it from your “breaking news” page, but don’t be afraid to update information on an existing post. After all, you’re trying to be as useful as you can to your readers.

What strategies do you use for getting news out quickly and then developing more detailed posts?

Will Google’s search engine enhancements benefit bloggers?

Last week Google added some new tools to its search engine, including the ability to more easily filter results based on their type (or at least what Google thinks their type is) and date, as well as some visual tools including the time line and the subtly-named “Wonder Wheel”.

I wrote a general tutorial on Google Search over at Tech Digest, but while I was doing that it set me thinking whether Google’s new tools will benefit bloggers at all.

Some of these search honing options aren’t new — it’s been possible to search by date for ages, though I’m guessing not so many people have learned the syntax or used the “Advanced Search” form — while others are, though they could have been achieved by judicious use of search terms (reviews, for example).

However, they’re packaged in a more user-friendly, point-and-click way.

I wonder whether these new tools will benefit bloggers?

Google has already introduced the ability to search the content of blogs, though I’m not convinced that I’ve seen any real increase in traffic as a result. In fact, most of my traffic comes from the standard Google search.

Bloggers who publish news or other information as it happens may well benefit from users searching for items published in the past 24 hours, though Google is already known to push prominent sites (including blogs) to the top of the search pile at least for a few hours or days after a big event has been covered.

Bloggers involved in product reviews may well benefit from that search filter, presuming Google recognises the relevant blog posts as reviews.

Bloggers who post original video content may well be picked up in the video search. Though many people simply visit YouTube to search for content, Google’s video search covers a wider range of sources.

Those who run forums alongside their blogs, or whose blog posts are frequently picked up in forums, may also see traffic increase if users are specifically interested in that type of media (though I have to admit I’ve never searched Google specifically for forum posts).

It has long been noted that making good use of images encourages people to visit a blog. Google’s new option to display thumbnails alongside each search result could well be to a blogger’s advantage, although at present not all search results seem to be included.

It’s debatable whether the timeline and Wonder Wheel options will directly drive traffic to blogs.

Perhaps bloggers who publish some historical information about people, products and events may find themselves on the timeline.

Wonder Wheel may well push searchers to more niche search terms for which smaller blogs have a better chance of ranking well in.

Measuring the direct impact of these search terms may be difficult, depending on how stats packages interpret visitors. However, a general increase in visitors from Google (and possibly more targeted ones) over the next few weeks could be a good sign.

What do you think?

New Batch of Upgraded Performancing Themes Released

Treasure Theme has recently been released, but did you know that we also released several batches of upgrades for previously-released themes?

Check out the list of updated themes, which includes the following:

  • Blue Laptop
  • College Theme
  • Gangway
  • Modern Paper
  • News Theme
  • Nightlife
  • Nitrous
  • One in a Million

The latest batch includes:

  • Photopress
  • Redbook
  • Simplicity
  • ‘Tis the Season
  • TDAge
  • Rubidious
  • Dark Laptop
  • Story Theme
  • Estranged

While the previous versions of the Perf Themes should work properly with WordPress 2.7 up, you won’t be able to use the advanced features like threaded comments, post classes, built-in image classes and gravatar support (where applicable). So download the latest editions now!

Performancing Theme Release: Treasure for WordPress

It has already been over a week since we released the Treasure theme on Themes.Performancing.com. If you haven’t taken a look at it yet, you’ll want to.

Treasure is a simple, two column theme that focuses on the content. Each and every blog posts is placed inside their own content box, allowing strong separation between posts. Designed by Randa Clay, Treasure is easy to use, free and beautiful. If you want to add some colour to your blog, but also want to keep things looking clean and simple, check out Treasure.

Treasure Theme is optimized for use with WordPress 2.7 and above. It supports threaded comments, post classes, image captions and gallery classes introduced in this version of WordPress.

If you’d like to download Treasure, head on over to Themes.Performancing.com where it is currently active, and get your copy today.

This brings Themes.Performancing.com to nearly twenty free WordPress themes!

Will You Be Joining The Kindle Store?

The rush is on! Amazon has opened up Kindle Publishing to the public enabling them to submit their blog to be published on the service. The service is available for users of the Kindle, their e-book reading device. Kindle publishing has been around since the release of the first device but only a few blogs were selected to be part of their initial offering. Blogs range in price from $1.99 to $0.99.

How much will you earn? For most blogs this will be $0.99 per month, while the bigger blogs can draw up to $1.99 per month. Amazon will share 30% subscription revenue with you. So even if you get thousands of subscribers, the monthly earnings will be little. Moreover, you get paid by check.

I can see paying for newspapers in an electronic format, but for blogs? I don’t know about that. My quest for a digital device which is nothing but an awesome FeedReader combined with Roboform and WiFi continues. However, will you be adding your blog to Kindle Publishing? Do you think anyone will purchase access to it for 99 cents?

Enabling Visitors To Save Posts In PDF Format

Are you the type of blogger who publishes content on a regular basis that would be good to have in a portable format such as PDF? Sure, you could print the article off but then you have to store that paper somewhere. I think it would be much more convenient to have those PDF files on your PC. Thanks to a post written by Amanda on BloggingTips.com, I’ve discovered a nifty service called Web2PDF Online.

The service quickly converts HTML content to PDF for free which provides another means for your visitors to save your content. All you have to do is place the Web2PDF button on your website and the service will do the rest. When you sign up for an account, you get to choose how the PDF will look in terms of content margins and the orientation of the content (portrait or landscape). I know Joomla provides this feature out of the box so it’s nice to see a web service provide this functionality free of charge for anyone to use.

Blogging and Working: Productive Times, Days and Locations

I don’t know about everyone else, but there are times during the day and night that are more productive for me than others. Even certain days of the week are more productive than others. Some days, I seem to be able to push out more content than other days. It reminds me of how every office joke seems to relate to either hating Monday, or loving Friday.

Then there are locations. When working at home, it can take me four or five hours to do a task that should take me an hour or two. But if I head to the local coffee shop, I can what I consider four or five hours of work done in two hours.

My most productive times are from around two in the afternoon until around five or six in the evening, and then ten at night until two in the morning. And my most productive days are Tuesday and Wednesday, with Thursday starting my slow down trajectory towards the weekend, and Monday is my re-organization day for the week ahead.

It is a never ending cycle with strongly defined periods of high concentration and productivity. I’ve heard many successful bloggers and internet workers talk about their strange work schedule. Having families can change this of course, and if you have a day job, you’ll also have periods that work well for you in getting both “jobs” completed.

I would love to hear more about your high productivity times, days and places in the comments below. Are you a fan of Mondays? Do you dread heading into the weekend? All answers are right, if they work well for you.