Hello, I’m James and this is my blog, ‘James Proclaims’. Every Wednesday, for the last few months, I have been writing disingenuous posts with click-bait titles. While my motivation has always been fairly tongue-in-cheek, I did start doing this partly to see if it made any difference to my overall stats.
I don’t massively care about stats – I did once, I presume most bloggers do when they start out, but over time most of us realise that while a general upward trend is probably a good thing, having lots of new followers doesn’t necessarily translate to having lots of people actually reading your blog. It’s not always even clear if ‘likes’ are indicative of people having read anything.
Nonetheless, my stats do fascinate me because I’m never quite sure what influences them. It’s certainly not my writing.
So as well as being a project to amuse myself with, the click-bait titles did serve as a kind of barometer with which to gauge my stats. What I learned, if I learned anything, was that when a click-bait title pertained to blogging it did really seem to have a measurable impact. Other titles fared less well, although some were more impactful than others.
This makes sense, the people most likely to come across my blog are inevitably going to be other bloggers and we all want to know how to be better bloggers don’t we? Even people who pretend not to care, like me, secretly crave the magic elixir, which will lead to blogging greatness.
Sadly that elixir still eludes me, and I started to bore myself with the click-bait titles a while back. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve kept going with them for so long.
So this is my last one.
If you clicked here looking the secret to getting new readers then I’m afraid it remains a secret to me too. Although an eye-catching title is probably a good thing. As long as you’re not peddling a lie.
James Proclaims! 
28 responses to “You’ll Never Get More Readers Without Doing This”
Erudite and to the point.
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A rare thing for me
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I’m going to miss them.
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I imagine that you will cope though
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I guess I’ll muddle through somehow.
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Ha! Clever!
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You genuinely give me too much credit. But thanks 🙂
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Pah, why worry about that? 🤣
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You make a good point
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Wait… what?
Where’s the magic elixir!
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If I understand correctly, it’s in a place called Metaphor. But I’ve never been there so I’m not certain.
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I’m starting to think you don’t really know anything at all.
Well done, that’s the first step to wisdom.
It’s true, someone said it on a blog post that the title persuaded me to visit.
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That is a reliable source so there must be something in it. Or is it a reliable sauce? In which case it’s most likely tomato.
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You know what’s weird — how few comments there are on this post. I thought your click-bait titles usually had more comments. Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting post. I’m strangely “sad” that this is the last such title. It’s like the end of an era.
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Probably just a natural break in an era that will never really end.
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Sorry. I just liked this…did I miss anything?
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Not really 😉
Oh… you may have missed that apparently this is the last of James’ clickbait posts. (Unless he’s lying about that too, of course….)
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😉
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So much that I can’t even.
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😉
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I have only one thing to say about your decision to end these fascinating posts.
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Your comment is a recursive one?
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Could you repeat that please? Many times!
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Well said
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Oh, no! You’re not doing any more clickbait posts?
Well, in that case, this is my last chance to do something I’ve been thinking about doing for some time now…
You’ll Never Get More Readers Without Doing This.
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It’s a big enough bandwagon. There’s room for all.
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I actually referenced your click bait experiment in my last post, but I used a popular social media phrase as the title for my post which some people called a “rant” but I insisted was merely a few helpful suggestions.
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I often find that the difference between a rant and a few helpful suggestions can be tricky for some people to spot
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