Photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash

Numbers Count!— For Blog Titles and Creative Thinking.

I’ve recently started writing blogs to post on Medium having been a reader of them for a few years. In addition to writing all the content to go in a blog, it needs a title. And not just any words. Titles matter and influence whether people find your article and choose to start reading it. I’ve recently been shown a neat little app that analyzes your title with scores for readability, SEO and emotional connection.

I used it to work on the title for this article, which scores a fairly respectable 59, made up of Readability: 85; SEO: 50 — how likely are the search engines to pick it up and Sentiment: 44 (how much of a personal appeal does the title make)

Once you start looking at titles it’s hard not see how many of them contain numbers. ‘The 10 best ways to do ….’, ‘The 15 things I learned from ….’ ‘The 3 things you need to know before ….’

And it turns out that there are 5 good reasons for doing this.

1. Using numbers works. Research showed that the top 2 openings to articles were ’10 reasons why…’ and ’10 things you…’.
2. Numbers that work the best. 10 is the best single number.
3. More is better. Our brains are instinctively wired to understand that ‘more’ usually equals ‘better’. This is why studies have proven again and again that we’re really drawn to numbers in headlines.
4. It gives a measure of value — and expectation management. You know what you will be getting.
5. Numbers equal facts — Eye-tracking research shows that users’ eyes are attracted by numbers in web content.

However, there is another side to the way the brain responds to numbers which is valuable for creative thinking.

Asking for a specific number of answers can spur the brain to produce new ideas. Here are three examples:

1. James Altucher’s Idea Machine — write down 10 ideas a day. Not 9 not 11, just 10. Having a specific target stimulates the brain to respond. Try it and you will see. You can make it more specific — 10 ideas about something you’ve been thinking about — How to increase sales for a product or how to start growing vegetables in your living room.
2. SFBT (Solution Focused Brief Therapy) has a practice of asking clients for lists — think of 10 things that have gone better for you this week, 35 things done this week that fit with going straight
3. When teaching mind mapping, I always ask people to do quick practice maps with 7 branches — ‘think of 7 things you like about where you live’. Most of them come up with 7 in under 2 minutes. It’s a great way of getting the brain to react quickly to a question.

In all these cases the brain seems to be able to respond. And not just respond with gibberish. Respond with ideas some of which surprise the person saying or writing them.

In the same way that numbers attract our attention to articles, they can also stimulate our brain to come up with new thoughts. So when you need a fresh perspective try asking yourself, or others for 10 new ideas.

Think you’re not creative? Grab a friend and this simple pencil and paper activity will change your mind.

Peter Redstone and his artist wife live in South Devon, UK in a converted cowshed. Their 4 children all grew up on the farm before spreading their wings. Peter was a management consultant in the 1970’s, an organic dairy farmer and ice cream maker in the 1980’s and 90’s and now delivers science leadership training. He teaches creative thinking and admits to being a mind mapping missionary.