Category: Headlines

The Truth behind Crooked Trump and Crooked Hillary and Crooked Socrates

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date January 7, 2016

Gasp! This chart clearly shows that Hillary Clinton is a crook.

Of course that is the dumbass way of looking at this chart, once you go deep into the reasons of this chart you find out something else is going on.

What this chart represents is the power of political spin.

If you are not fascinated how information is used to communicate and persuade, then you probably should not be a content marketer. Communication and persuasion is the essence of content marketing. As to the veracity of whether Trump or Hillary are crooks or not is beyond the scope of this blog and I shall leave it to you to work out on your own.

But, true or not. The power behind this tactic is self evident. News media is talking about it. Social media is talking about it and now I am talking about it.

Just for fun, let’s add a serious but boring issue, such as the “balance of payments”, for the United States only.

And if you are thinking that this type of debate is new, it’s been going on since the time of Socrates and I would love to have the time to detail the insults that were traded on the floor of the Roman Senate, but I don’t.

I shall leave you with this quote, When Mahatma Gandhi was asked, “What do you think of Western Civilisation?” He replied.
“I think it would be a good thing.”

It’s all about the nuance.

Headlines

How do I write the best Headlines for my Blog?

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date February 13, 2015

My first book, hopefully the first of many is out now to buy on Amazon, Create Magnetic Headlines or if you are UK based click here.

If you have been scratching your head or other parts of your body that we must mention, in trying to come up with fresh and fruity headlines, this book is for you.

If you need help with igniting your headlines with more TNT that you could make in Minecraft, this book is for you.

If you are really lazy and like to sleep in all day after a two day marathon of watching two series of 24 back to back. Then this book is definitely not for you. I’m sorry but you have to do some work you lazy bum.

Keep track of the Create Magnetic Headlines theme over at the official website as there will be goodies like video, slide presentations, mindmaps… etc. published for the tribe.

Headlines

Incongruous Juxtaposition of the Seemingly Unrelated

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date January 9, 2015

I’m writing a book, it’s nearly finished too.

Perhaps even this weekend.

But just a quick thought.

I’ve written about the phrase, “incongruous juxtaposition of the seemingly unrelated”, which I think is a wonderful sentence and makes you appear dead brainy at parties.

The first time I heard this was when John Carlton was talking with Michael Fortin about a the success of a headline that talked about the success of a one legged golfer. They talk about

how a good A good hook grabs your readers “by the eyeballs.”

It’s a great read, go read it.

I apply the same methodology to a lot of the headlines I create and when I mentor people to build content I teach them this method. Of course it’s not as simple as randomly picking the words that fit the parameters. They have to work, they have to tell a story, it has to seed the mind and move people forward.

The next step is of course to destroy trees, and I can’t remember who said that. It may have been Gary Halbert, apologies regarding my feeble research. But this phrase was about when we used to put pen to paper. Now you simply destroy a few keyboards, the point being you have to graft and lay the bricks when creating this stuff.

Only way it’s going to build is if you lay the brick.

The phrase of course speaks for itself, it’s what the great headlines have. That friction, that orbit of two or more bodies.

A great headline is a work of art.

Art born of sweat.

OK, back to the book. Hopefully it will be out soon.

Image source

Tags copywriting, Headlines, magnetic headlines

Headlines Newsjacking

Killer Royal Baby Headline Ideas

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date July 23, 2013
1 Comment on Killer Royal Baby Headline Ideas

Image source

You may be sick of Royal Baby news, some were sick before the first media pundit uttered that the “atmosphere was palpable”.

A linkbaiter is indifferent to the emotion (or tries to be) of such news events as they are dealers, not users. They see news events as opportunities to squeeze out a few more links, craft some killer headlines.

The linkbaiter goes where the conversation goes and yesterday we know where the conversation was. Even the haters were talking about it, talking about how much they hated it sure, but that still adds to the conversation and the heat of the story.

A healthy baby being born is good news, and lets not forget that 2,200 other babies were born yesterday. Although individually not such a media news event.

With that in mind lets look at some headlines around those who were not so happy yesterday.

Note: where I write “10” you can insert any number that works.

10 Best Baby Hater Quotes from Twitter
10 Top mental Royal baby fans
10 Stupid things said by media pundits
10 Stupid things said by Twitter
Spot the media pundit who really doesn’t want to be covering Royal Baby news

We could go on as tapping this mindset is easy. It’s important to note the negative aspect is in the minority. A scan of #RoyalBabyBoy on Twitter is overwhelmingly positive, not that it’s a scientific indicator.

What is interesting about going negative is that this group will be more eager to vent their spleen and so more likely to link. Tapping the negativity may seem cynical, but it is only reflecting a view prevalent in society.

The linkbaiter goes where the conversation is, it does not create something that is not already on someones mind.

But lets go positive, which I am sure will annoy any haters.

10 Happiest Royal Baby fans around the world
10 Best Royal Baby names
10 Most loyal Royal baby Celebrities
10 Rappers and the cool things they say about the Royal Baby
How lucky are the other babies born yesterday? 2,200 in the UK
Will Royal Baby boost UK economy?

And so on, we could go on and this is easy stuff to do. You can pretty much create a headline for any niche on this topic. Want to test me, just for today

Others are creating some really good content around this content though. Checkout the Where in line to the throne are you? from Mike Overthrow

I am sure there will be more to come.

Headlines

One Reason You should Create Killer Headlines for your Blog

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date January 18, 2012

250 million pictures a day are shared on Facebook

Can your headline compete with that?

Tags Headlines, power headlines

Headlines

Writing Headlines That Reach The First Page

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date March 25, 2011
1 Comment on Writing Headlines That Reach The First Page

Guest Post by Brandon Hopkins, let me know if you would also like to get a guest post published on Cornwallseo.com

There is no shortage of people telling you how to write killer headlines (my personal favorite is Brian Clark’s, How to Write Magnetic Headlines), but what these headline experts fail to mention is how a headline affects your search engine rankings.

I wasn’t born yesterday, and neither were you so we both know that a good headline should use your keywords and be compelling. After all, you do want people to click right? In addition to being compelling and using those keywords, you also need to make sure that you’re different.

Take a minute and go to Google and search for just about any 3 word phrase that a normal person might search for. I searched for “funny cat videos” and “top 100 songs” those two searches give some interesting information if you know what to look for.

Take a look at the titles for the top 10 results. Do you see any duplications? Do you see 2 sites that have the same title? That right there is a big secret many people are missing and they don’t even realize it. Are you creating a new niche blog about funny cat videos? Guess what, if your title is “Funny Cat Videos”, you’ll have a hard time ranking on the first page since Google usually only allows one site with that title. This means for you to reach the front page Google will remove the other site with that title and move them to the second page.

Go ahead and look through the first 5 pages of search results for “funny cat videos”. Do you see any identical titles on any of the pages? I didn’t think so.

What does this mean for your website?

1. Avoid the Urge To Simplify. Even though you really want to rank for “funny cat videos”, make sure and title your page “Watch Funny Cat Videos Online!” Using a title that isn’t already in the top 10 will ensure that you don’t have to force Google to choose between your site and an already established site that is ranking well. There is room for you both to coexist! Hopefully you’ll exist in the number 1 spot!

2. Write Compelling Headlines for Every Page. Don’t be lazy with your authority (or Pillar) content. For many niche sites, it’s tempting to just use your main key phrase (funny cat videos) as the title. Make every title compelling (Top 100 Funny Cat Videos).

3. Check the SERP’s Before Finalizing Your Title. If you’re great title is already being used by a site in the top 10, I would suggest changing your title.

4. Reevaluate Your Titles. Just because you had to use a different title doesn’t mean you can’t eventually change your title back to your main key phrase. Once you’re in the top spot, you can experiment with small variations to see if you can increase your click through ratio by just changing a few words.

5. Use Your Company Name. If your keywords don’t lend themselves to compelling titles then you can always use your company name or domain name. Take Ezilon for example, in the web directory market, you have to make yourself distinct. Ezilon did that by creating a regional directory.

While duplicate titles might be a very small ranking factor, it’s definitely something to keep an eye on!

Brandon Hopkins builds links for small and large companies all over the world. You can contact him at his Fresno web design website for more information on getting your site ranked #1!

Tags Headlines, writing headlines

Headlines

Hotel Headlines

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date July 23, 2009

The following is a short excerpt from a longer post in the members only section of the Magnetic Web Content forums.

Travel is a very competitive area, but it is also a very rich area for content. A lot of the most obvious headlines get used over and over, one reason for this is because they work.

However, we want links and the people we are looking to get links from are a savvy bunch and have pretty much seen everything before, so you need to be innovative and interesting.

To me, a great headline is one that has familiarity but takes you in a completely different direction.

These example headlines – which you can use as you will, are focussed on UK Hotels.

UK Ghost boosts hotel bookings

I’m going to assume you know nothing of headlines, but one example is that a headline, “Dog bites man”, is not interesting, whereas, “Man bites dog” is. “Hotel increases its bookings” as a headline is boring, having a ghost is mildly interesting, but having the bookings go through the roof because of some spectral visitation makes it a little more interesting.

UK Hotel bookings soar on ghost sightings

From an seo perspective it may help if “UK hotel is at the beginning of the headline, it makes it more difficult to make the headline interesting, but should always be attempted as the headline will invariably make up the anchor text and therefore effect the SERPS.

Apple Mac owner haunts UK Hotel

Did I tell you that the ghost is of a previous hotel guest who was killed by his wife when she threw her Apple Mac into his bath? Obviously what I am trying to do here is to attract the digg crowd. Different headlines should be considered for different social bookmarking sites, appealing to the interests of the users of those sites.

If you think I’m making this story up as I go along you would be right, I’m pretty much writing this as it comes into my head. Is it a true story? No, of course not. I find it a very successful technique to come up with a killer headline first and then craft a story around that headline.

………. this article continues in its full form at Magnetic Web Content

Headlines

Headline Writing Contest

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date June 12, 2008

The guys over at Distilled.co.uk are running a ppc headline writing contest.

There are some excellent prizes on offer, but because I am all over the place at the moment I forgot to tell you earlier. Hey, you have 24 hours to do it, I’m sure you can do it. Deadline is June 13th.

I know, I’m an idiot, I should have posted earlier.

My Contribution is:

Click a link
Sponsor a child
Save a life

Your choice
Click on by
or change a life

Stop your crying
ground is already wet
Your wallet matters more

Tags contest, Headlines, idiot, pcc

Headlines

How I Use Twitter for Headline Examples

Post author By Lyndon Antcliff
Post date April 29, 2008
8 Comments on How I Use Twitter for Headline Examples

I finally found a use for Twitter which combines my love for knocking headline ideas around. Check out these twitter headlines.

Basically, I get a headline idea which I think worthy of the Twitter mosh pit and I throw it in. If I get feedback great, if not, the headline needs serious work. Even is the response is, “Dude, you’re a real weirdo coming up with that”, it’s all good because for a headline to invoke response is great, even revulsion is fine as long as curiosity is piqued.

We are not here to write a great novel or give Tolstoy a run for his money. We are here to attract peoples attention and somehow get them to do stuff. In my case with the old linkbait, it’s getting them to give up a link, someone poked fun recently as one of my pieces did not make the front page of digg. Well, it got a good, solid pr6 link from an aged authority blog and that’s what this is all about. It may not be pretty, it wont win a Pulitzer but as long as it gets the link, who cares.

But Twitter is very useful as I get instant feedback and as I have nearly 700 followers, nearly all in the online marketing space it is very useful.

I am creating a ton of example headlines to give away in my linkbait coaching program, I have seen a real need for clients to get up to speed with the technique and get a jump start with killer headlines. People can now hire their very own, human headline generating system for the daily price of a mocha.

Every so often I will throw one into the Twitter mosh pit and see what comes back.

If you have any suggestions on headlines to explore, let me know in the comments.