Yesterday I stumbled on some blog posts about writing better titles. There are a million of them, but one in particular caught my eye because it was hyping this site called Linkbait Generator. Basically, with Linkbait, all you have to do is type in a keyword and it generates a title for your post. A title that is supposed to make you famous because it drives traffic to your blog through its sheer awesomeness. I struggle with writing those kind of post titles so I decided to try it out. Why not, right?

I wasn’t expecting this kind of hilarity to ensue. I mean, I’ve been thinking about writing about school supplies (a fairly neutral topic) so I typed in “School Supplies” and these are the titles that were generated for me:

7 ways school supplies could cure cancer

6 bits of school supplies advice that will land you in prison

5 life lessons learned from school supplies

School supplies and the occult

8 reasons school supplies can cause suicidal fantasies

Then I decided to try “Art” as a keyword. I got this:

6 shockingly evil things about art

At this point I was just laughing so much that Jim came in to see what I was doing. He didn’t want to miss out on all of the fun I was having. So, I typed in “daughter and pacifier” because I will be writing about that soon and I needed to get back to work. That’s when these titles happened:

If daughter and pacifier had a love child with Satan it would look like this

9 ways daughter and pacifier can help a total sissy survive in prison

7 cynical ways politicians have exploited daughter and pacifier

6 bits of daughter and pacifier advice that will land you in the hospital

Tiny-Small came into the room yelling, “Underdog!” So, of course I typed that into the keyword title generator (how could I resist?) and got these:

8 ways Underdog can be used as a weapon

10 virtually instant ways to improve Underdog

8 ways Underdog has been involved in political scandals

With time ticking and my blog writing not happening, I decided to get serious. What if I wanted to write about parenting? I typed it in and this came up:

10 ultra-secret government projects involving parenting

Family? I typed it in:

5 reasons family is the new Star Wars

Then I got silly again. I typed in “Tom Cruise.” I was not disappointed:

10 funny ways Tom Cruise has appeared in music videos

7 ways Japanese subculture has perverted Tom Cruise

7 things about Tom Cruise that science can’t explain

Finally, I typed in my own name. Lillian Connelly:

The disturbing origins of Lillian Connelly (if you only knew the truth about me)

Lillian Connelly: Is it really possible to make money from it? (I’ve been asking this question for months now)

How Lillian Connelly is part of the gay agenda (Yes, I am)

8 ways Lillian Connelly has been involved in wars (Fashion wars?)

8 horrible lessons about Lillian Connelly that Hollywood teaches kids (how not to be famous?)

(Then it took a turn to the dark side. Probably due to my over-use and laughter):

The death of Lillian Connelly

What the world would look like if Lillian Connelly disappeared tomorrow

7 bizarre ways Lillian Connelly can kill you suddenly. (hopefully with kindness).

That was creepy. So, I tried one more, “roses” and I was laughing once again:

Why roses suck: myth versus reality

I have read that post titles with numbers and intrigue or drama are popular. I may have to use some of these in the future. I mean, I do wonder how many music videos Tom Cruise is actually in and in what ways family is the new Star Wars. It looks like I have some research to do for next week. Anyway, the site sold me on their titles because who can resist writing about the ways underdog can be used as a weapon? I certainly can’t.

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did! Have a happy Wednesday.

 

P.S. It was brought to my attention yesterday that spam from the hack is still showing up in my posts on feedly. Alex Iwashyna and I are still working on solving the problem. We are happy to say that the spam is no longer showing up on Bloglovin so we are making some progress. Please hang in there while we get this problem resolved once and for all. Thank you!