The Importance of a Good Headline

One of my favorite bloggers (Ian Lurie) recently wrote a post about the importance of headlines, with lots of examples of what not to do.  If you’re up for a laugh, give it a read: 25 cringe- or shrug-worth headlines

When writing a blog post or article, your headline should grab the attention of your potential reader.  If they see the headline in Google Reader (example below), why would they want to click to open it up?  What will they learn from it?

If your blog feed is set up to automatically post to twitter, these automation services will usually be set up to show the deadline and a link to the blog post.  Or you may compose different tweets to promote the blog post or article.  When doing this, keep in mind, why would a Twitter follower want to open the link?  What will they learn from the post?  Your headline should be your hook.

Here’s an example of how Ian’s tweet looked with the headline and link for his post about headlines:

I thought this headline was interesting.  I saw it in Google Reader, opened it up, read it, shared it on Twitter and now have written a blog post about it.  What are people doing with your blog posts?

DISCUSSION: What is the best or worst headline you’ve seen recently?