How to write a good article title?

The author of the public account Caobian Wangshi, He Caitou, wrote in "Why are clickbait headlines always effective? ” shared this view: “The effectiveness of clickbait is not guaranteed by moral corruption or bad taste. The effectiveness of clickbait is the serious result obtained through countless practices.”

Therefore, in theory, as long as you follow the clickbait’s pattern, everyone can write a headline that attracts attention. But the reality is that there are always some titles that make users feel boring and tedious, or even disturbed. Others make users willing to click in.

Obviously the same routine is used, why can’t some titles convince users?

The most critical point is that those titles lack user perspective. They thought they would be fine once they mastered the tactics of the headline party, but they ignored the impact of user scenarios.

To describe the user perspective in one sentence, it means assuming that users don't pay attention, don't care, and don't want to take action.

Specifically, since users lack motivation and reason to act, any means you take to stimulate users will fail. At this time, if you want users to act according to your ideas, you must find out what they really care about from their minds. Only by making users pay attention to their needs first can we stimulate them to take further actions.

Why do we also need the user’s perspective when writing titles?

Because we are currently living in an era of information explosion, users have to face massive amounts of information every day. Maybe you think that titles are competing for a user's click, but in fact, they are competing for the user's limited attention.

Therefore, if you only look at it from your own perspective, you will think that all users have to do is to answer a yes-or-no question, either accept the title and click on it, or reject it directly. The result of this perspective is that even though the title is good, no one is interested in it. And you don't know why this is happening.

If you look at it from the user's perspective, you will see that users have to make choices and trade-offs among a large amount of information. Moreover, users' selection preferences vary in different scenarios. Then, it is easy for you to understand that many times it is not that your title is not attractive, but that you have not found the user's G-spot.

Take WeChat public accounts as an example. The real situation for users is that with so many public accounts publishing so much information, which one should they read? At this time, what influences the user's choice is whether the title is eye-catching enough, and more importantly, what the user wants at the moment.

Different public accounts will choose different publishing times. One very important factor is that the selected time period is more in line with the current needs of users.

So, if you want to apply the user perspective and make users more willing to buy into your title, the key is to fully understand the different preferences of users in different scenarios.

User scenarios can be divided into the following three types:

User behavior: context related to user behavior .

User focus circle: scenarios that are closely related to the user.

User’s rigid needs: scenarios related to the user’s current needs.

User Conduct

"Behavioral Psychology" points out that we need to discover the hidden meaning behind a person's behavior. Because behind different behaviors lies a person's true thoughts.

For example, when a person is leisurely browsing Weibo, an advertisement for a bridal shop suddenly pops up. Most people’s reaction would be to just swipe past the page or click the cross in the upper right corner to indicate rejection. This subconscious avoidance behavior reflects people's dissatisfaction with advertisements.

For example, in the early days of the Get APP , audio was used as a delivery form to promote the app. By depicting some common behaviors, such as brushing teeth and washing face in the morning, doing laundry and tidying up the room, etc., people felt that they could do all these things at the same time, thus giving multiple values ​​to one behavior.

Back to the title. First, imagine a scenario like this: a person just wakes up in the morning and immediately opens his WeChat public account. What is the meaning behind his/her behavior?

Most people feel a little groggy when they wake up, and may even take a nap accidentally, worrying about being late for work. So you have to wake up your brain. Opening WeChat and checking out the messages pushed by public accounts is a way to invigorate your spirit. In this situation, he/she reads the official account just to read some relaxing content. He/she does not need to think deeply about it and can leave at any time.

In this scenario, faced with the following two headlines, most people would tend to choose the second one and read some entertainment gossip to refresh themselves.

"Three insights from reviewing the unmanned business model: It started with shared bicycles , where will it end? 》

"Half of the entertainment industry is praising you?" He deserves it.

User attention circle

People tend to pay attention to information that is related to their own interests. For example, fixed long-term interests, personal interests, group topics, hot information, value preferences, etc. This is the user's circle of attention.

If you bundle the title with these contents, it is equivalent to entering the user's circle of attention, and users will be more likely to notice the information you want to convey.

For example, in male groups, topics often discussed are cars , games , and beauties. Among the female group, beauty, weight loss, makeup and other topics cannot be escaped. However, topics such as stocks, investments , real estate, and finance are topics of urgent need that attract public attention.

What do you feel when you see the title of a course promotion like "Learn the Psychology of House-Tree-Person Drawing in One Hour"?

If someone who knows nothing about it sees the title, their first reaction might be, “What the hell is “House-Tree-Man”? ” Plus, the painting is very likely to remind people of a child’s sketch. Because it has not entered the public eye, it is easy for people to feel that this course has nothing to do with them.

In fact, the psychology of Fang Shu Ren painting is a way to understand oneself and dissect one's inner self. We all know the importance of knowing oneself, and if the title contains information related to "knowing oneself" , many people will want to see what the course is about even if they don't know what "House-Tree-Person" is.

Another example is this title, "It is said that this is the program list for this year's Spring Festival Gala, it's terrible."

Although the public's expectations for the Spring Festival Gala programs are gradually decreasing, the need to complain about the Spring Festival Gala program list is gradually increasing. At this time every year, as the Spring Festival Gala program list is released, joke tellers begin their annual complaining event. For the general public who mainly likes to watch people complain, such a title is not to be missed.

User's rigid demand

The user's basic needs refer to what is urgently needed in order to complete a task. Sometimes, this urgency is that users think they are important. At other times, this urgency is because it is the basis for taking the next step.

Take learning English as an example. We all know that memorizing a bunch of words does not mean you can learn English well, but for those who are just starting to learn English, if you say theories like a bunch of words are useless, it will only keep people away from you. On the contrary, providing methods on how to quickly improve your vocabulary will make people believe that you really know what you are talking about.

This is the user's basic need.

For example, this Weibo post from the Jiema APP says , "Money is spent everywhere, but wallets are so empty." Together with specific spending scenarios such as giving gifts, changing mobile phones, online shopping, and renting, it very vividly links users' rigid needs for money.

Summarize

To get readers to buy into your headline:

1. Be responsible for user scenarios and understand the different needs of users in different scenarios.

2. Use the correct title methodology to attract readers' attention and stimulate their desire to open.

There are three common types of attention-grabbing headlines: offering readers a benefit, providing readers with useful information, and providing new information.

For example, "I compared all the online marketing courses on the Internet, and this is the most cost-effective one" provides benefits to readers; "Ten suggestions for all young people in the workplace" provides useful information to readers; " Bill Gates has a new part-time job and works as an editor for Time magazine" provides new information.

3. Use the 4U principle (urgency, uniqueness, clarity and specificity, and practical benefits) to conduct self-check on your title.

The full score for each U is 4 points, and 1 point is for poor performance. The titles are scored from the four U perspectives. The standard for a good title is to score at least 3-4 points on 3 Us.

The author of this article @舍雪 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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