Dumb Question Headlines Sabotage Your Great Content
I read a lot of marketing stories every day.
Three of my go-to places are search-related: Search Engine Journal (where I cover social media, content, and the occasional search news), Search Engine Land, and Search Engine Watch (where I contribute monthly-ish and used to be editor a couple years ago).
The question of question headlines has been on my mind of late. I recently wrote about question headlines (and yes my headline, Are You Using Too Many Question Headlines, is meant to be ironic).
Today as I was looking at the homepage of one of those sites, I noticed something quite odd about the headlines.
Right now on Search Engine Watch, there are 8 question headlines, and 10 non-question headlines.
That’s a crazy ratio. Almost half of all the headlines are questions.
Many of those question headlines just don’t need to be (e.g., “What were Google’s biggest search algorithm updates of 2016?”).
There are much more definitive and interesting headlines just waiting to be written for most of these (off the top of my head, “The 9 Biggest Google Search Algorithm Updates of 2016”).
For comparison:
- Search Engine Land uses just 1 question headline and 19 non-question headlines.
- Search Engine Journal has 2 question headlines and 23 non-question headlines.
If you want to be seen as an authority/expert (no matter what industry/niche you write in), then be more definitive with your headlines.
In fact, too many dumb question headlines weakens your brand and sabotages the success of your content.
Do you see Nike asking “Do you want to do it?”
Did Apple ask, “Why don’t you think different?”
Does BMW ask, “Are we the ultimate driving machine?”
Headlines are the most important element of your content.
Often, your headline is the first introduction to your brand, especially if people find you via a Google search.
People type questions into Google because they want to find an answer.
If it looks like you don’t provide that answer, they won’t click. If nobody clicks, your content won’t be read and it will eventually vanish into Google’s vast wastelands (anything on Page 2 or beyond).
Take a bold stand. Have a viewpoint. Have something important or useful (or at least entertaining or inspirational) to say.
My take: Ask less questions. Provide better answers.
Stop asking. Start influencing.
