For years, I've attempted to cleverly title my posts here. Puns mainly, but under inspiration, I've slipped in a triple entendre or two and subtle allusions that I doubt anyone else gets or cares to get.
But I've changed my thinking recently, because I find, as I browse the archives, that I have no idea what some titles refer to. I'm not getting my own in-jokes anymore.
I'm reminded of blog advice I've seen at various places. Most of those articles are tiresome. I don't care about making this blog optimized for search engines; I'm not interested in selling ads here. But I do want to optimize for human reading. Some of the same principles apply:
- Keep it short.
- Pull the reader into the first paragraph.
- Make it sensible so that if a reader is picking it out of an RSS feed, he or she can get a sense of it.
- Provoke.
These principles are also good to keep in mind because although I don't want to make money here, I am slowly, slowly gathering momentum to try to make some money off blogging. That ship has sailed several times by now, but there's room for more ships to come in. So while I wait, I'm learning to craft better post titles.
No comments:
Post a Comment