I’m creative writing challenged. I can wing it occasionally, but it’s not a skill that I’ve practiced much. So it’s a challenge to come up with funny or engaging lens and module titles.
Then I read Shane Amber’s amazing Rubberwood lens. It was featured as a Lens Of The Day back in the early days of Squidoo soon after I joined. Sadly, the lens has disappeared, it was one of the best I’ve seen…on topic, well laid out, witty, informative and about an interesting topic I didn’t know existed.
Anyway, Shane credited a site on the lens that he used to generate his module titles. It’s called the Advertising Slogan Generator. Simply enter your subject and the site returns a real advertising or popular slogan with your subject mashed in.
A few examples using “Squidoo” as the subject are:
Moms Like You Choose Squidoo
Snap! Crackle! Squidoo!
There’s First Love and There’s Squidoo Love
Obey Your Squidoo
The site has been very helpful to me when I’m struggling to find the right title. Now, instead of staring blankly at my lens workshop, I click over to the generator. I’ll use a slogan as generated or one of the slogans will trigger my creativity to develop the right one myself.
Give it a try when you need a creative catalyst! And thanks to Shane for the link!
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:12 am
Sounds like a good idea - it’s not always easy to be creative. Writing something different helps keep your audience interested.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Sounds very cool. Just a question though. When I started writing articles I used creative titles such as these but was told they aren’t so good for getting traffic, and that I should stick with keywords/phrases and avoid being creative to get the recognition I want from search engines. Do you find that creative Titles do as well as long as your domain name is more basic?
July 14th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
We enjoyed the slogan generator, thank you. It was entertaining and one day it may just prove helpful!
Brenda
July 15th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Mulberry,
I’m not an SEO expert, but as long as you use one of your keywords/phrases as the subject in the slogan, you should be ok with the search engines since it’s in the title. Plus you now have a title that might catch someone’s attention and encourage them to keep reading your lens.
My preference is to use a mix of creative (with keywords) and straight forward titles.