Do you think it takes magic to write a great headline? Nothing could be further from the truth. It just takes a touch of talent, mixed with a bit of technique. And great writers are highly sought after and highly paid.

Joe Sugarman is a legend in the world of copywriting. His number one rule is that every single sentence almost forces the reader to read the next sentence. Your headline should promise a benefit to the reader. Your article should support that promise.

You want to tap into your reader’s emotions. Your writing should be passionate and emotional, taking advantage of their wants, needs and desires. You convey the article’s main idea by creating titles that are short and punchy.

They dont have to be creative or funny — the opposite is actually true ” its sometimes better if their not. Good headings are almost never cute or clever. Cute or clever titles rarely pull readers. (One of my most creative was Roasted Penguin Tastes So Good It Would Make Gandhi Slap His Kids! It was cute; it was clever; and it failed miserably.)

Writing headlines is an art  you’ll want to spend a lot of time crafting this component. Not everyone is successful in crafting attractive and eye-catching headlines. This means if you can master the ability, you’ll be light-years ahead of the competition.

Writing headlines is much like writing a song. In a song, the words must be appealing and in harmony with the music. The same is true in copy. A banner must sing. In other words, it should be in harmony with the story and sound satisfying to the reader.

Good headlines should be active. Make them short and say only what they need to say to cover the topic. They should convey the number one benefit to the reader. The copy that follows should be plain and simple paragraphs that support that benefit, as well as giving more.

Their purpose is to entice us to read on, to rouse our curiosity. I once heard a good headline is like a good pickup line. While they never get you the girl, they buy you a few more minutes to plead your case.

Don’t get me wrong. Funny headlines can sometimes work. I’ve used them myself. But they work best offline, like a direct mail piece. Online you want to think about how people use the search engines. I promise you no one is typing in your clever headline, so the chances of it being seen are nil. They’re using keywords… words relevant to what they want. So use the same words to attract them. And you’ll get the added benefit of higher rankings from Google; they’ll see you as more relevant. Good stuff. After all, higher rankings means more traffic… and that’s what you’re trying to get, right?

That’s right WordPress 2.8 is just around the corner.

The exact date it will be available I am not sure of but there are some cool changes with the widgets and theme installer.

I installed the beta (on a non working site of course) and created a quick video to show you some of the changes that will be coming.

Watch the video below and let me know what you think.

By the way if you noticed the Twitter Bribe below, I might as well tell you there is no bribe if you want to know more about that Robert Plank plugin you can read about it in the Tweet Rewards From Your Blog post.

Pssst! Gotta Tweet?

Robert Plank has been at it again, this time he is invading Twitter.

He created a plugin for the members of his and Lance Tamashiro’s Blog Invasion System that he calls Twitter Invader.

If you look at the bottom of this post you will see what it does. (Yes, I am a Blog Invasion member, it never hurts to learn something new and Robert’s and Lance’s brains are good ones to leech off of.)

Just looking at it you might not be able to tell why it is special. It looks like just another Twitter Tweeter but it does have one noticable difference you can see it asks for your Twitter name and Password.

Personally, I don’t like the password request but it is needed to automatically send the tweet and then bring them back to the same spot without ever leaving the page. When they come back there is a new message that can be a link to take them to a reward for tweeting.

In the settings area for Twitter Invader you can set up the text that will be presented when the tweet is completed and link it directly to reward or bribe. It makes it quick and simple to bribe and reward.

But there is another advantage that you won’t see. When a person tweets your post they will automatically follow you. AH! So you get a tweet which might bring you some traffic and you get a person following you. It doesn’t mean that they won’t unfollow you the next day.

If this is set up the proper way I can see it building your following on Twitter and getting traffic to your blog through the tweets but I want to know what you think.

Is this a plugin you think could make you money?

Is it a plugin you would be willing to pay for? Don’t worry I am not selling it I don’t have those rights. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it is available to anybody except the Blog Invasion members.

Give it a ride, you will end up following RandyTheHermit but I use tweetlater and I will auto-follow you too.

You should also know that I did tweak the appearance of the box a little to make it stand out a little more so if you don’t like the appearance remember that.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. If you don’t want to use it let me know why not.

NOTE:  I have disabled the Tweet Rewards until I actually put a reward on it.  When it is back up and running you will see it on every post!