Why Your Post Title is More Important Than You Thought

I’ve been saying this for years: People Don’t Read

People don’t want long articles.  They want titles and bullet points.  They want to skim.  Not only do they want to – that’s all they are going to do!  I just finished watching this Ted Talk with Jim VandeHei of Axios and he gives some good advice about writing better.  Let me save you time by summarizing it for you:

Things you can do today to be a better communicator

1. Stop being selfish Don’t write about what YOU care about.  Write what YOUR READERS need to know.  Write what they care about.
2. Grab me  Whatever you are writing, think about the one thing you want the reader to remember.
3. Keep it simple One sentence is better than two.  One paragraph is better than two.  Use simple words and simple sentence structure.
4. Be human  Don’t try to show off in your writing.  Don’t use long words or wordy phrases.  Talk like you would to a friend.
5. Just stop  The greatest gift you can give in this cluttered world is giving people their time back.  Use as few words as possible so that the reader gets the message you want but you both get the time back on the extra words.

I can’t tell you how much I agree with what he says and he has the studies to prove this true.

See the whole TED talk here: