Hi Barbara - that is some sinking boat. I wonder if they managed to rescue it?

I subscribed to myself in RSS by accident when I was still working out to use it. And every few days I check to see how my posts look in it and which I would be tempted to read.

Sometimes I try to write titles that will appeal to RSS subscribers and sometimes for search engines. It would be nice to do both all the time, but it isn’t realistic - not if I want some search engine traffic. Then again, even for them you have to write a half decent title.

Another thing I do is to look through the Digg RSS and see what stands out. You know - it’s nearly always posts with numbers in them that stand out for me. And I’ve noticed that some of my posts with numbers in that are the most read.

It is difficult to come up with great titles constantly isn’t it? But, as you say, it’s essential, because some of us subscribe to hundreds of posts.

I visit very few blogs on a regular basis - aside from yours and Ian’s. I also try to get to Hunter, Nez and Mrs Micah on a regular basis, but Mrs M writes too many posts for me to keep up. My RSS feed is so cluttered that I don’t use it to visit my regular blogs, which is why I never know when you’ve posted on OM - I just take a chance.

So, for everyone else, I work my way through it. I no longer read posts every day and I rarely comment nowadays unless I have something to say. But, when I’m deciding what to read - it’s almost always the title that draws me in.

CatherineL’s last blog post..Business Success Is Only A Deathbed Away

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I really don’t like how RSS readers show the photo credits as the first line. I wish it could somehow detect a photo credit and skip to the next sentence. But it is what it is, and that makes the title even more important if you start with a photo.

On many blogs, I’ll just start reading from the third paragraph or so. I’ve gotten used to the fact that many posts will spend a couple of paragraphs as a sales pitch to get me to read the post, like a time management post reminding me that people don’t have much free time and convincing me that I’d like more. I wish they’d just start off with telling me how to do it! But I tend to unsubscribe from those blogs, and only read blogs where I want to read every word.

I’ve heard people talk about the importance of the headline and the first sentence for drawing readers in. To write an enticing headline, anything straight out of Cosmo seems to work, although personally I find them too hyped up. I’ve seen formulas for opening sentences, but there are so many of them that I think the main thing is just to pay attention to making them appealing. I don’t pay much attention to that, but I should.

Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..What Color Is Your Focusing Crystal?

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Subscribing to your own RSS feed is always a good idea. Besides being more focused on the content, it also lets you see if something goes wrong in your feed, or preview if you add an RSS footer.

Joshua Clanton - Design for the WEB’s last blog post..A Novel Approach to Web Design

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Are you conscious of your title and the first line of your post? Yes, I try to make it interesting.

Do you concentrate on capturing your readers attention within the first few words? I try..I know the first few words are very important. Usually if it doesn’t grab me, I do a quick scan before I abandon the entire post.

Have you ever looked at your own RSS feed in Google’s reader. No I forget to look at my reader, I opt for email, but my blog is apart of my yahoo feed.

If not, subscribe to your own blog. I do.

Natural Woman’s last blog post..Freedom of Speech, My Asterisk*

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