One Word Made My Article Go Viral
Coulda, woulda….SHOULD’A!!
What if you said, “You marry me” when you proposed to your spouse instead of “Will you marry me?” One is a statement the other is a question. The word “will” makes all of the difference. It adds a bit of mystery.
Turns out making a statement in your title versus asking a question is a game-changer as well. I added the word should to the beginning of my article.
On Monday, February 14th, I wrote an article entitled, “Joe Burrow Should Leave Cincinnati”. It was the day after the Super Bowl and it got some traction, but not much. I thought a strong opinion in the title would get eyeballs so I made it a “statement.”
On Thursday, February 17th, I published the article, “Did You See What Matt Stafford Did”? Do you see the subtle difference between the two? The title to the Joe Burrow article was a statement. The title to this one was phrased as a question.
The views and reads exploded.
I noticed the difference so I rearranged the title to the Joe Burrow article to a question: “Should Joe Burrow Leave Cincinnati?” I made this change yesterday (February 19th).
As of today (Sunday, February 20th), not even 24 hours after the change was made, my Joe Burrow article went from 200 views to 9k and 7200 reads for an 82% ratio.
I’m not making any money on it because I’m not part of the MPP and 99% of the views are external.
I learned a valuable lesson in regards to titles and how to phrase them. Because of that, it looks like I’m going to be married to my Joe Burrow article for a long time.
