How to get people to read your blog: Write a good headline, dude

The 80/20 rule of headlines says that on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. The better the headline, the better your odds of beating the averages and getting what you've written read by a larger percentage of people.

Technorati's State of Blogosphere report became the most popular story in the blogosphere yesterday. Hundreds of blogs (including this one) linked to the report but each post had a different title to catch the reader's attention.

Let's look at some blog posts which cover the same Technorati story but the bloggers have written creative headlines to make them look more interesting. [Cnet copied my headline :) ]

Andy Beal / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim Blogosphere 100 Times Bigger than in 2003

Ben McConnell / Church of the Customer Blog When will blog growth top out?

Boing Boing Seventy percent of blog-pings are from spammers

CNet There's a blog born every half second

Cynthia Brumfield / IP Democracy:   It's Alive! Two New Blogs Created Every Second

Dan Farber / Between the Lines:   Latest stats on the blogosphere

Dan Gillmor / Center for Citizen Media: Blog 50 Million Blogs and Counting

Darren Rowse / ProBlogger Blog Tips:   Dave's State of the Blogosphere

David Weinberger / Joho the Blog:   Technorati state of the blogosphere

Denise / Bag and BaggageFaster Than A Waistline On Cookie Dough

Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:   Blogging statistics from Technorati

Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog Two blogs created every second....

IP Democracy Another Hollywood Tie for Google

Joseph / Joseph Scott's Blog The Blogosphere Will Continue To Grow

Kathleen Gilroy / Ottergroup.com State of the Blogosphere

Loïc Le Meur / Loic Le Meur Blog 50 million weblogs on Technorati

Mark Evans / Mark Evans 50M Blogs and Counting....

MarketingVOXTechnorati: Blogosphere Grows Hundredfold in Three Years

Matt / The Blog Herald State of the Blogosphere, August 2006

Michael / Binary Bonsai Sifry's Blogosphere Graphs

Minic Rivera / thebloggingtimes.com:   Growth of the blogosphere has to slow down- Sifry

Paolo / Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog Where are all the French bloggers?

Podtech Blog / PodTech:   Massive Growth of the Blogosphere Continues

Readwriteweb / Read/WriteWeb English language only 39% of all blogs

Shel israel / Naked Conversations Sifry Reports on State of Blogosphere

Steve Rubel / Micro Persuasion:   Technorati: Most Blogging is During Biz Hours

Steve Safran / Lost Remote:   Technorati: 11 of top 90 media sources are blogs

Stowe Boyd / /Message Dave Sifry on State of the Blogosphere, August 2006

TechBlog Wow, that's a big blogosphere you got there

Tim Finin / UMBC eBiquity Sifry's state of the Blogosphere

Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:   A New Blog is Created Every Half a Second, Blogging Time is 10-2 PM