Grab The Attention In A Second
Posted on June 3rd, 2008 by Shane under BloggingGrabbing a readers attention is a very important to becoming a successful blogger, it is an art that many people work on for years and still fail to perfect. There are many of tips and tricks that can be used to grab the attention that may turn the reader into a subscriber. I am going to show you some of these little tricks and hopefully you will quickly see the difference. I am going to talk about all the tips within one phrase, as many people find phrases easier to remember subconsciously (It is very important to make blogging almost like a second nature).
“From The Top Down”
This is a phrase that you often hear for different reasons, in the blogging world it helps to always remember it. I often use it as one of my Golden Rules of Blogging (which I may talk about another time).
Header
The first thing that the audience see is usually the logo or header, this means that a lot of effort must be put into it to make it something everyone remembers.
I have carefully chosen a few examples.

As you can see some of these stand out more than some of the others, so it is very important to make one that stands out as much as possible. This is the part worth spending money on.
Post Titles
The next element on most blogs is the title of the latest post. Many people, including myself, often use dull titles such as:
- Site Review -
- Latest News
- How to …
Most readers would look at the title and skip the post or even the whole website. It is very important to choose catchy titles which are unique. Some examples of these include:
- 10 Ways To Sell A Site In 10 Minutes
- A Look Into
- Ever Wondered How To Do … ?
These may sound like adverts you would see on T.V but that is exactly what you want to do.. successfully sell each post to the readers. It is sure to grab the attention. Now you have the attention you need to keep it!
Content
The content of each post is obviously the most important element. If the reader is reading a post then it means you have their attention, so straight away you need to impress the reader and keep them reading. To do this you need to make sure your post is original and unique, even if it is just from a different viewpoint that many other bloggers and posted about.
One good way of coming up with ideas for your posts is asking questions to yourself. When your walking around doing your everyday work just start asking questions which may help when you blog, for example:
- Why is my friend’s page rank so low?
- What did I struggle with when I was new?
- How could I help other people?
All these kinds of questions would help give you ideas of what to write about.
Another very good way to interest the reader and keep attention is to include pictures, clip art is often used and works very well, as this visually attracts the reader to the post. Both Shannon Lilly and Mark Cuda use clip art and both say its worth it! Maybe I should start listen to their advice..
I hope you all liked this post, I enjoyed writing it.
Shane Hudson


June 4th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I don’t usually comment on posts, but I must say this one was very good.
I have to agree, the header is a crucial part of a website. When I go to a website, the first thing I look at is definitely the header and logo.
I also think keeping the blog neat is also mandatory. I have gone to many websites and blogs that were overflowing with ads, and even though their content is good, I don’t usually go back because it’s hard to find the content within all the ads.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Thank you Skb875, I am glad you liked the post! I also agree about keeping the blog neat, I did not think of this when I was writing the article.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Keeping a blog neat and clean is the way it should be, thats why I am going to redo my blogs theme soon. Can’t stand the sloppy comments section!
June 6th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Great blog post Shane, Its some great insight to blogging and how to sell yourself to the website viewer.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:42 am
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