Forbes Steals New York Times Article For Increased Website Traffic ?

[Ord_Allenbea]

In the marketing arena you will hear many times marketers talking about the title of your articles and content. While we all know the content of that article (including pictures) makes a huge difference in search engines rankings and retained readership; we must not forget about the title which is designed to attract the reader.

High quality content and pictures that are related can be worth 1,000's of visitors but how much is that title actually worth ? If the following story about Forbes stealing a New York Times article is any indication, the title is worth 100,000's of visitors.

Just this past Friday New York Times published a new article entitled : How Companies Learn Your Secrets. This lengthy article discussed in detail how large companies such as Wal-Mart and Target collect data on individual consumer patterns to figure out how to most efficiently keep their customers happy. This was a great article but did it have the actual title that it deserved to have ?

When Kashmir Hill, a writer at Forbes, read this article and realized the potential he created a more compact article with a more powerful headline (title). Kashmir Hill got rid of most of the fluff and got right to the meat of the story and written his article entitled : How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did.

When I checked the story on the New York Times website, it had 60+ links and shares on Facebook which was far less than the 17,000+ that Forbes article has. The Forbes article currently has a mind staggering 1,063,916 views on it's article.

The truth is that in the age of technology and popularity of newsfeeds and streams, article/stories titles matter more now than they ever have before. The highest quality content online can fail to drive traffic without the proper title. The story of Forbes stealing a New York Times article illustrates this very clearly with their recent Target article.

[MissTerraK]

Exactly OA!

The purpose of a title or headline if you will, is to get your readers so intrigued and excited about what you are going to offer them, that they don't dare click away. It compels them to read on.

Think of the most important point in your article and search for an emotion you want to target within your readers that will draw them in thinking, I've got to read this! This is what I've been searching for! Don't be afraid to try or experiment with a myriad of words until you find just the right one.

If your title sounds lackluster to you, then beyond a shadow of a doubt, it will to readers too.

Now you need to make sure that your content is just as potent as well, because if your reader feels cheated, betrayed, or deceived, then you've lost any potential sales you may have otherwise secured.

Just a few helpful hints.

Mz T

[Ord_Allenbea]

There is a great marketing lesson that can be learned from Forbes doing what they did to New York Times High quality content matters as we all know but the title is something I think we all could work on.

[MissTerraK]

Yes it is, as I said in my previous post.

If your title sounds lackluster to you, then beyond a shadow of a doubt, it will to readers too.

If you look at the New York Times title it falls under "lackluster" while the Forbes title falls under "I've got to read this".

When I said that your content should not deceive the reader or make them feel cheated, I'm talking about a let down from the content whether the content is well written or not.

For instance, if your title is "Elephant Brings Traffic To A Standstill In New York City" and the article is about a white elephant sale that a local New York high school track team is holding to raise funds for new uniforms, well you can just hear the "ugggh" of let down from the reader. You can just envision the eye roll as they read the article.

They were expecting to find out how and from where an elephant escaped, etc. They were curious to find out if any accidents were involved, etc. But you've just let them down and they are very unlikely to go support the fundraiser rather than if you had a snappy title regarding the fundraiser.

Mz T

[sjs]

Mz. T, so true.


We saw that to be the case with the countless articles that have headlines that include "Tim Tebow", yet have little or nothing to do with #15.


I think for the next year I will include "Tim Tebow" in all my headlines and titles. For example, "It's tax time, not Tebow Time", and "Save money on your next vacation like Time Tebow.". Haha


But seriously, the main thing I took from this article was the value and need for split testing. On the surface, both titles seem to be ok. But the "split testing" done by Forbes vs The New York Times verified which one was better.

[Ord_Allenbea]

Here is the thing that will shock many, it took months of research to create that article on new york times. Notice the date on the Forbes articles and also notice the length because it is a more condensed article than new york times.