Here are 3 super-useful free tools I love. I’ll be emailing #4 soon.  So be sure to be subscribed to the newsletter if you want to get it first.

Here are the first 3:

1.  OnlyWire -  You can have the best content in the world, but if nobody reads it, views or consumes it…well, what’s the point of creating

it?  I’ve been using www.OnlyWire.com to simultaneously syndicate content and articles to the top social bookmarking sites with a single button click.  It does take some time to set-up all the sites if you don’t have accounts already, but it’s a task you can easily outsource.  As part of an overall link building strategy I’ve found it to be a powerful tool.

2.  Added Bytes’ Text Readability – If you write emails, blog posts, articles or any type of persuasive copy, it needs to be very clear and easy to read to be effective.  Studies show that most people read at an 8th grade level.  So you should aim to write at a level somewhere in the middle.  Most of Gary Halbert’s classic letters read at the 4th to 5th grade level. That’s why they worked!

To find out what level your text is, paste your text into http://www.addedbytes.com/tools/readability-score/

I use the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula.

The level of this post  is 4.20. (You don’t have to be worried about being smarter than a 5th grader to read this one.

3. FormatIT – Once someone opens your email you want it to be easy to read. The simplest way to do that is to format the width of the text. By the way, this also does something subconsciously in the mind of your reader.  I won’t go into that here, just trust me on this.

Depending on the length I like to format my emails between 50-65 characters wide using www.formatit.com.  Just paste your text and voila!

You have a perfectly formatted email with long URL’s intact.  The “Re-FormatIT” is useful for removing unwanted returns and characters too.

Watch out for tool #4 soon.

Have fun with these!

P.S.  Found these useful? Leave me a comment below.

Perception is everything.  At first glance the following ad had an entirely different meaning to me.

Then I saw the space between the words “Love” and “Making”.  Ohhhh!!!

Completely different ad don’t you agree? 

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• 8 Tips for Writing Compelling Blog Post Titles

If the front door doesn’t catch people’s attention, they won’t come in.  The headlines of anything you write – blog posts, email subject lines, ads, etc., are like doors.  It doesn’t matter how great the content is inside if nobody opens the door.  So your first job is to get people to want to come inside.  Darren Rowse from Problogger wrote a blog post on 15 Ways To Rework Your Next Blog Post Title.

Obviously the article’s focus is blogs, but I think the 8 tips for writing compelling blog post titles are applicable to all headlines.  It’s really a small and basic lesson in copywriting.  For your convenience I’ve reprinted the first 8 tips, though I recommend you read Darren’s entire post here.

1. Communicate a Benefit – a title should tell readers something that they’ll ‘get’ by reading your post.
2. Create Controversy or Debate – not suitable for every post title but there’s nothing like Debate to get people checking out a post.
3. Ask a Question – in my experience posts with questions in the titles tend to get read more than others – they also are better at stimulating comments from readers.
4. Personalize Titles – for example: using ‘you’ in your post title (and post) can have a real impact and take a post from the realm of ‘theory’ into a more personal post.
5. Use Keywords – keywords that signal to readers and search engines what your post is about can help draw in significant traffic if you use them well.
6. Use Power Words – Not all words are created equal – some evoke a powerful response in readers – words like ‘free’, ’stunning’, ‘discover’, ‘warning’, ’secrets’, ‘easy’ etc all work well in my experience of blogging.
7. Make Claims and Promises – as long as you can back them up in your post – a big claim or promise can get someone’s attention.
8. Humor Titles – be careful with this one – funny can work great but it can also leave your readers very confused if it’s too cryptic…. or if it’s just not funny.

Reprinted from Problogger.net

By the way, all these tips are also applicable to Twitter.  Your Twitter tweets are really just headlines. Posting links to content with creative headlines you come up with is a great way to hone your headline writing skills.

Tracking however is essential to do this so that you can see which headlines get the most response.  Sometimes headlines I think are great end up flopping and ones I think are duds get hundreds of clicks.  So make sure you track!  My favorite tools to do this are Budurl and Hootsuite.

Other Related Posts You Might Like

• Where To Get Killer Headlines For Your Emails and Blog Posts
• Why I’m Spilling the beans on Twitter profits with ZERO followers… (TIME SENSITIVE Post)
• Why I Quit Qwitter For Twitter
• To Follow or Not To Follow ALL Twitter Followers?
• The Rise and Fall of Twitter??

I wouldn't want to buy a fully loaded portable toilet.
No wonder they later changed it to "fully equipped".

image source: consumerreports.org

Other Related Posts You Might Like

• “Love Making Movies” Ad Gone Bad?
• Where To Get Killer Headlines For Your Emails and Blog Posts
• 8 Tips for Writing Compelling Blog Post Titles