Titles, and What I Didn't Think About

Michael Harley wants bloggers to write better titles for their posts. Descriptive titles, no vague ones, no clickbait.

I get why he wants that. It would be nice to know a little of what's inside before you read the whole thing. But it's their blog. They can write a title or not. That's their choice, and it's their risk to take if they want more readers to actually read it. And if they care enough to think about what readers want to see in a post, a better title would be nice, if they can manage it.

I do read blogs with bad titles, misleading ones, even clickbait sometimes. But I'll click anyway and read a few sentences to see if it's worth my time. So whether your title isn't going to win anyone over, or there's no title at all, make those first couple sentences count. That's what actually keeps someone reading.

But again, it's their blog and their writing. Still, it made me look at my own posts a little differently.

I never really thought about it from an RSS subscriber's side before. If someone subscribes to my feed, they want some idea of what's in a post before they click. Reading his post made me realize that, so I'm willing to make my posts with better titles moving forward. I'll still use Micros without a title, as I did in the past, but that'll stay the minimum.

Some link roundups just get a generic label. "Tuesday Links." "Five Links #12." "Weekly Links." I get why. When a post covers five different things, there's no one title that covers all of it.

When I used to write my Friday Haul, five links I found worth reading that week, I thought about just titling it "Friday Haul" plus a date. But I changed my mind and gave it a real title instead, a word or two pointing to what was inside. Funny thing: I'd already made that call before Michael even wrote his post.

It's not just link roundups that get the generic-title treatment. I've seen other bloggers start doing weeknotes, and I like the touch of it. Feels close to journaling, just typed instead of handwritten, and public instead of tucked away in a notebook. Most weeknotes I see are titled the same way: Weeknotes, plus a date. I'd do that differently too. If I ever wrote one, the title wouldn't just say "Weeknotes." It'd say something like "Weeknotes: [whatever that week was actually about]."

Kev Quirk agreed with Michael and ended up changing how his own feed shows notes because of it. James Zhan disagreed, and made a case for bucket posts I hadn't thought about. Worth reading both.

Different bloggers just have different perspectives on this, and none of it is really right or wrong. I don't think blogging has any rules. It comes down to preference in the end. But it's still nice to be thoughtful about it, and think about what your readers would actually like to see.

Funny how a post about other people's titles ended up changing how I title my own.

P.S. — I'll be back with Friday Haul when I'm ready.