A long article to understand all the tricks of the "100,000+" title

This is an era of "information miniaturization".

In the years when newspapers, magazines and television were popular, consumers were accustomed to setting aside whole blocks of time to immerse themselves in receiving information. However, after entering the mobile phone era, people can access massive amounts of content anytime and anywhere, and consumers' time and attention have long been torn into pieces.

To win their attention, the copy must grow in these small fragments. A catchy headline plays an increasingly important role in increasing click-through rate and thus forwarding rate.

How to write a title with high click-through rate and forwarding rate?

If you want to write a title that is both well-received and popular, you first need to understand the difference between a good title and a bad title.

There are two types of bad titles. One is bland and makes people have no desire to click on it. The other is bluffing and can attract people to click on it, but the content under the title is completely irrelevant. This is commonly known as " title party ". "Title party" is very dangerous. It will make users feel stupid and cheated. Their curiosity will immediately turn into anger, and they will wish to kill the person who wrote the title.

A good title is a clever distillation of the content of the article. It is like the pinch of cumin that the barbecue stall guy sprinkles on the lamb skewers, which can attract passers-by to come over.

12 tips for writing a great headline

It is irresponsible to ignore the content and discuss the title routine in isolation. In this long article, you will see the title techniques for different types of content, as well as what kind of titles users of different self-media platforms ( WeChat , Toutiao , etc.) prefer.

Next, I will divide the content into five vertical fields: emotion/chicken soup, fashion/entertainment, life/food, technology/information, and knowledge, and share the tips for writing good titles for these contents.

Emotional and chicken soup content

The primary responsibility of emotional content is to help users vent their emotions, and the same is true for emotional titles. If you have studied the titles of emotional giants such as Mimi Meng and HUGO, you will find that they are all doing this very diligently.

Since the purpose is to vent emotions, the title usually needs to have a clear point of view, preferably black or white.

Tip 1: User-centric

Take a look at these headlines that have received a lot of attention:

• "The child is young, can't you be more tolerant?" "No" (Mimeng)
• "Are you a virgin?" "None of your business" (Mimeng)
• "Is it great that you are rich?" "Great" (Mimeng)
• "Girls shouldn't work too hard?" "Will you support me?" (HOGO)
• "Are you having your period? Drink more water" "Get lost!" ( Papi Jiang )
• Women in the workplace: Dare not marry, dare not have children (Mimeng)
• If you have something to say, just say it, don't ask "Are you there?" (Kawa Weika)
• Don’t force me to get married. I feel like no one is worthy of me! (Mimeng)
• What I post on my Moments is none of your business! (Frog Brother Comics)

The similarities between these titles are that they have fewer words, simple grammar, and many of them directly adopt dialogue style. The trick to this type of title is to completely stand in the user's perspective and speak their mind without any packaging. The advantage is that when users see the title at a glance, some people they want to @ will appear in their minds, and a desire to attack will immediately arise in their hearts. This mentality is very beneficial to the click-through rate, especially the forwarding rate.

Technique 2: Challenge common sense + create binary opposition

Common sense is "control yourself and return to propriety", while counter-common sense is "indulge yourself". Which title do you think users are more willing to click on?

Come and experience it:

• I am a money worshipper and I change my boyfriend, but I am not a bad woman (Peach Red Pear White)
• Be a Difficult Woman (HOGO)
• Who says women must live like virtuous women? (A woman with a fragrant soul)
• Women who know how to spend money are happier (Kawa Weika)
• The wife should live like a mistress (Mimeng)
• Unlucky girls, luck won't be too bad (Mimeng)

The above titles break people’s conventional cognition. Regardless of whether users agree with the views expressed in the titles, it is difficult to suppress the urge to find out more. When writing titles, it is necessary to deliberately construct binary oppositional factors, such as the "bad woman" (good woman), "difficult to get along with" (easy to get along with), "will spendthrift" (will not spendthrift), "legal wife" (mistress) in the above titles. Some oppositions are implicit, and some are explicit. In any case, this kind of confrontation and contradiction needs to be created in the title.

Skill 3: Suspense + Interest Points

This type of popular headlines often use the tone of an elder to reveal the truth about life and the tips for a happy life to users in a caring and persuasive manner.

• A man who truly loves you will treat you like this (Irie no Whale)
• What little actions do boys take on a date that will make girls unable to stop? (Du Shaofei)
• What kind of woman is most likely to seduce a man? (Xiaobei)
• When in love, men are most annoyed by these eight behaviors of women (Gu Jie)
• The correct way to get the male god (Papi Jiang)
• Whether a man will cheat depends on these two points (women should read more)
• What are the little quirks of Aries that are difficult to talk about? ( Uncle Tongdao )
• How can a girl with average looks become beautiful? (Cicada Creative)

The common technique for this type of title is to make the benefit point clear in the title, so that users know what kind of information they can get after reading it, while creating suspense and attracting clicks. For example, in the title "What kind of women are most likely to seduce men", the interest point is "seduce men", and the hidden information is "the trick to seduce men". If there is no clear interest point, simply talking about the skills of creating suspense is undoubtedly futile.

Fashion and entertainment content

Entertainment and fashion content are a form of resistance to ordinary life.

What is the opposite of ordinary? story.

The story has ups and downs in the plot and suspense, which can satisfy people's curiosity and hunting psychology. The title with these elements can easily be touched by users' fingers.

Technique 1: Personal pronouns + timeline + reversal

This type of title often begins with the first-person pronoun "he/she" and tells the ups and downs of the person's life in chronological order. After reading this type of title, users basically know the outline of the content, but they just don’t know who the person is. for example:

• She was one of the four beauties of the Republic of China. She became a movie queen at the age of 17. At the age of 25, she committed suicide due to the indifference of her ex-husband and lover. 300,000 people saw her off (Financial Gossip Girl)
• He was Liang Qichao's favorite. He got his PhD by washing dishes in the United States. His Chinese classmates built missiles to attack China, but he built missiles to defend his motherland (Financial Gossip Girl)
• She is a male god harvester, she is beautiful and has a better sense of fashion. After marrying for love, she was spoiled like a little princess. At the age of 29, she still lives like an 18-year-old girl! (Business style)

As mentioned above, on the premise that the content is true, the more bloody, twisted, and inspiring it is, the better.

Technique 2: Suspense + Information Ladder

As long as the content quality is good, any title that can arouse the user's curiosity and desire to explore is a good title, for example:

• Uncovering the secrets of a game overseas platform that raised 400 million yuan in financing . Jack Ma , Pony Ma , Shi Yuzhu and other bigwigs are all investing in it (Entertainment Capital Theory)
• What the business will never tell you: After testing 15 robot vacuum cleaners for 3 months, we found that... (list)
• Yin Zheng was photographed with Zhang Lanxin, revealing his real height! I couldn't help but study the heights of male stars with Yin Zheng as the center (serious gossip)
• In addition to "I'm here now", there is another spell that will make you buy a lot of junk (anti-pants position)
• What kind of bag can really stand the test of time? (Rebecca's Fantasy World)
• If you follow the trend and buy these lipsticks, you will only become uglier and uglier (YangFanJame)

This type of headline successfully creates an "information ladder" through suspense, that is, the writer holds a secret that the reader does not know, and the person who forwards the information holds the truth that those who only read the headline do not know, thereby increasing the click-through rate and forwarding rate of the headline.

Life and food content

The primary responsibility of titles of life and food-related content is to use words to vividly depict people's taste, vision, touch, and smell, creating sensory appeal.

Tip 1: Satisfy multi-modal perception

Humans have a cultural tendency to link visual imagery with verbal messages, which is the nature of multimodal perception. Psychological research has repeatedly shown that words are most memorable when they evoke concepts that produce clear visual images in the mind.

• The magical nougat and scallion rice cake, 54 layers in one bite (Food Channel)
• How to eat 9 roses and 15 jasmines in one bite (Food Channel)
• Jinhua ham is as thin as a cicada's wing, and every bite is the taste of time (one)
• 1.5 catties of fresh sugar cane is condensed into a candy: it understands what you can't say (ENJOY Food)
• Combining the flavors of apple, pear and jujube, this fruit is quite fresh ( Cooking in the Kitchen )

The above group of titles all talk about the flavor of food, but none of them use adjectives to describe the taste. Instead, they use some concrete nouns to evoke a sense of picture and make people impressed. For example, to describe scallion rice cakes, instead of using the word “thin and crispy”, we use the word “54 layers in one bite”; to describe flower cakes, instead of using the word “fragrant”, we use the word “eat the roses and jasmine” to create a connection between vision and taste.

Tip 2: Find endorsements

People are always particularly interested in things with a background and are more willing to find out more. This is the power of endorsement. for example:

• This year's first harvest of West Lake Longjing, the tea that Empress Dowager Cixi drank was from this shop (one)
• This is the legendary winner of the 2016 Red Dot Award: Cat Toilet (one)
• The Forbidden City has released a lucky red string, which is worn by Yao Chen, Jing Tian, ​​and Wu Qilong (one)
• From Silicon Valley to China, one is sold every three seconds. Once you use this juicer, you won’t want to touch other ones (tear eggs)
• We found the most famous sommelier in the country and selected a bottle of port wine for you (Penguin Food and Drink Guide)

In the above titles, historical stories, award-winning experiences, celebrities, sales, professionals, etc. are all ways to add weight to the titles.

Technique 3: Metaphysical Refinement

For many people, the key to what to eat and what to use lies not only in the food and utensils themselves, but also in the life atmosphere they can create, commonly known as "XX represents XX's attitude towards life." for example:

• Eat a good crayfish and you will catch the summer in Nanjing (Penguin Food and Drink Guide)
• After a whole winter, my girlish heart was awakened by this little sweet drink (Penguin Food and Drink Guide)
• As long as the pot is still bubbling, my mood will not be blueblue (Egg is full)
• A lazy egg can save your winter anxiety (ENJOY food)

Modern people have too many diseases that need to be cured: insomnia, anxiety, depression, grief, social phobia, embarrassment cancer... Modern people have too many psychological needs to be satisfied: literary heart, glass heart, escape heart, girlish heart, princess heart, queen heart... If related words appear in the title, the click rate will be more guaranteed.

Technique 4: Comparison

Compared with exaggerated descriptions, comparison is a more effective technique that saves words:

• After eating this pineapple cake, the others are just so-so (Eger is full)
• It is sweeter than 99% of the fruits in the world, and has a charming mousse-like taste (Cooking in the Kitchen)
• The "Hermes" of chocolates will make you stand at the top of the Valentine's Day ticket circle this year ( Chengdu Food)
• Use these 10 small items during menstruation, which are 100 times more useful than brown sugar water (IF)

By making comparisons in the title, you can magnify a certain aspect of the object being described. It may seem a bit exaggerated but not pretentious, making users more willing to click to learn more.

Tip 5: Playing the edge ball

The world is cruel to white lotus. Those titles that have not been cleansed are often the best way to attract attention. like:

• 1,000 photos of his little brother (Cicada Creative)
• Every morning and evening, I just want it to vibrate in my mouth (one)
• I ask you to sleep (one)
• What is it like to have a straight boyfriend? (Frog Comics)
• There is one thing on a man that will be swallowed up by a woman on Valentine's Day night (Du Shaofei)

The above is that speculation is risky and operations should be carried out with caution.

Technology and information content

Among this type of content, some have strong news attributes, such as the new speech of a certain big shot, the new action of a certain large company, etc. As long as the title of this type of content includes all the relevant keywords , it will be eye-catching enough. In addition to this type of content, there are also some techniques for adding color to the content with titles.

Tip: List the numbers

This type of title often contains one or more sets of numbers. Since numbers are the opposite of fuzzy, they tend to give people a sense of professionalism and authority, such as:

• After tracking 783 startups for five months and analyzing 647,000 pieces of data, we found 10 interesting phenomena (Tiger Sniffing Network)
• After the decline of the news business, these 11 pictures tell you how the three old portals make a living now (Curiosity Daily)
• YY's overseas story: What can we imagine about a live streaming platform with 30 million monthly active users and a valuation of 400 million US dollars in one year (36Kr)
• Escape from mini programs : 60% of users return to APP, 70% of developers want to give up development ( Titanium Media )

Knowledge content

Knowledge content must have incremental information to be valuable, and this must be clearly reflected in the title of such content.

Tip: Keep it simple

• A long article to understand all the tricks of the "100,000+" title (Uma Xiaoman)
• After visiting 21 self-media giants with 500 million fans, I came to 22 conclusions ( New List )
• These 4 soul questions can solve 80% of your problems (LinkedIn)

When you see the above titles, are you almost unable to suppress the urge to collect and forward them before even reading the content? Their common feature is that the knowledge contained in the content is greatly simplified and refined, so that users have little psychological burden at first glance. Terms such as "8 rules", "a long article", "10 minutes", "22 conclusions", and "4 questions" all use numbers to reflect very clear interest points.

Now that you have mastered the skills of writing titles, what else do you need to know?

In addition to the above-mentioned micro-techniques, understanding some macro trends is also helpful for writing a good headline.

1. Titles are getting longer

In the era of print media, a good headline has one important element: short. Because paper printing is expensive and has limited space. In the digital age, titles no longer have to worry about this constraint. Currently, the allowed title length for WeChat subscription accounts is 64 characters, and the allowed title length for Toutiao accounts is 30 characters.

Through the analysis of more than 2,000 popular articles with more than 100,000 views, Xinbang also found that the number of words in the titles of popular articles on WeChat showed an increasing trend:

• On February 16, 2015, the average title length was 18.02 words;
• On February 16, 2016, the average title length was 19.29 words;
• On February 16, 2017, the average headline length was 21.66 words.

New media expert Liu Chen believes that in the new media environment, information is getting longer and longer, which is a phenomenon of "information pre-positioning". The fundamental reason is that the information explosion has led to increasingly scarce attention resources. "Instead of folding all the information into the text and passively waiting for users to open it, it is better to display the information directly at the entrance so that people can see it at a glance."

This requires content creators to consider the title from the user's perspective, and think about what kind of title would be most likely to make people want to click on it without knowing anything about the content.

2. Different self-media platforms welcome different titles

Multi-platform distribution has become an inevitable trend in content creation. So, will the same title have the same effect when published on high- traffic platforms such as WeChat public accounts and Toutiao accounts? Let’s compare the titles of “Ergeng” on WeChat official accounts and Toutiao accounts.

The picture above is the title of "Ergeng" in the WeChat public account, which reflects the following characteristics: fewer words, abstract meaning, and it is difficult to know the specific content at first glance. Let’s take a look at the title of “Second Update” on Toutiao:

From the "Best Articles" list on the right side of the above picture, we can see that the titles of "Ergeng" articles on Toutiao have hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, are long in words, and have specific meanings. Basically, users know what the content is about after reading the title.

Why does “Ergeng” use different titles on different self-media platforms? Because it understands that the distribution mechanisms of WeChat public accounts and Toutiao accounts are different. WeChat is a social platform where distribution is based on social relationships, so content and titles with social topic attributes (such as emotions between men and women, zodiac signs, etc.) are more likely to be popular.

Toutiao is an information platform that uses a machine algorithm distribution mechanism. Some words with specific meanings are easier to be recognized by machines, and then they are pushed to users who like to read these "tags". Users also prefer to click on titles that have a sense of story.

Conclusion

If you want your content to gain good traffic on different platforms, in addition to mastering the common techniques for writing a hit title, you also need to think more about how accounts with good traffic on major platforms use titles. I believe you will gain more.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

The author of this article @乌玛小曼 is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map