Behold the power of the question mark. Does your blog ask enough questions?

One thing that we see frequently on magazine stands, is the faithful question mark. Copyblogger has a brilliant article on writing cosmo style headlines, and one of the founding factors of a good title is the question mark. Put it on the end of your title, and chances are you will have stumbled upon something that will add interest and hopefully generate incoming links for your blog.

Do Questions = Comments? If you are asking questions of your readers, and attempting to engage with them, the more likely you are to receive comments on your posts. Why do we need comments? Well user generated content is a big boon for a blog, it takes some of the work out of getting fresh content (which the search engines love), and you get the added bonus of relevant outgoing links appearing. Not always, but sometimes. Especially from other bloggers in your industry.

Do Questions = Links? If you answer a question in your post, then someone else asking the question is more likely to come across your post in the search engines (works particularly well for the ask search engine). Therefore Question + answer = links. When someone finds a comprehensive answer to their question, they are more likely to link to it.

Do Questions = Subscribers? We all know that rss subscribers are the holy grail of the blog. The more subscribers you attract, retain and entertain the more likely you are to get direct visitors to your site. If you make the potential subscriber feel that they should stick around or come back to get more worthy content, then you are half way to achieving a decent number of loyal visitors.

Do Questions = Clickthrough? Think about where abouts your article title is likely to show up, and how likely someone will be to click on it. If a question generates intrigue, then it follows that a question becomes a good target for a clickthrough, whether that be a website search result, or a link on Digg.

What questions do you ask your readers?

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Filed in: Blogging
Tagged with: question • question mark • subscribers • user generated content