I hope all of you in the States had a good Independence Day yesterday. My family and I enjoyed doing some much needed yard work, and then a trip back through time to Railroad Town at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer.

Speaking of history, here are the headlines that got the most of my blog broadcast emails opened and click through last month. Where you see (+), (++) and (+++), that indicates that the headline in question was at the top of one of the other lists (with (+++) indicating the #1 position).

Highest Open Rates

Here are the top ten most opened headlines:

  1. Most-Clicked Headlines for May
  2. (+++), (+++) Google Launches the +1 Button (+1++?)
  3. (+) Using PLR Content vs. Blog Riffing
  4. There's No "U" in "Blog"
  5. Niche Selection: Should You Go Narrow Or Broad?
  6. When Making Money is Like Pulling Teeth
  7. The Power of Being Memorable
  8. Get More Responses to Your Blog Riffs
  9. (++), (++) Can I Ask a Small Favor?
  10. Niche Down By Embracing the Third Rail?

The #1 most opened email last month was last month's counterpart to this post. The themes that landed the most headlines in this list were Blog Riffing and niches. Had July 1st's post on Google Web Fonts been counted in this month, it would have been in the #4 spot, putting Google in the most opened themes too.

Numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 each had the largest margins over the posts below them of any this month, but at no point were the margins particularly large. The #1 post out performed the #6 post by about 19%.

Most Clicks

The headlines that got the most clicks through to the blog (as a percentage of emails sent) were:

  1. (+++), (++) Google Launches the +1 Button (+1++?)
  2. (++) Can I Ask a Small Favor?
  3. (+) Using PLR Content vs. Blog Riffing
  4. (+) With "Circles", Google May Have a Killer Social App
  5. When Making Money is Like Pulling Teeth
  6. (+++) Most-Clicked Headlines for May
  7. Why Amateurs Fail When They Try to Copy Experts
  8. Selling Without Selling
  9. Video: Blog Riffing with SEO Content Factory
  10. Get More Responses to Your Blog Riffs

Here, as with last month, the #1 post was the clear winner, with 27% more clicks than #2, and 67% more than #10. There was another big break -- 38%, between numbers 4 and 5. The July 1st Web Fonts post would have made the #5 spot on this list. But even without that, Google related headlines dominated click-throughs, with Blog Riffing coming in second.

It was nice to see my "Small Favor" post score well here, and I want to thank everyone who took me up on the request. I could still use 5 more "Likes", so if you haven't done it yet, please click that headline and help me out. Thanks!

Most Clicks Per Open

As has been explained in past stats posts:

Open rates tell us which headlines drew the most interest, and raw click-through percentages tell us something about which post bodies were the most interesting. But the ratio of clicks to opens tells us even more about which posts started with content that kept people moving.

The body of each email contained an excerpt from the beginning of the post. Any posts that start with too much introductory drivel will produce boring emails, and draw less clicks. Post that created curiosity or interest at the very beginning got more.

  1. (+++), (++) Google Launches the +1 Button (+1++?)
  2. (++) Can I Ask a Small Favor?
  3. With "Circles", Google May Have a Killer Social App
  4. (+), (+) Using PLR Content vs. Blog Riffing
  5. Why Amateurs Fail When They Try to Copy Experts
  6. When Making Money is Like Pulling Teeth
  7. Video: Blog Riffing with SEO Content Factory
  8. Selling Without Selling
  9. Get More Responses to Your Blog Riffs
  10. (+++) Most-Clicked Headlines for May

Here again, Google-related headlines dominate (the Web Fonts post would have been #5 again), with Blog Riffing also doing well. The "Favor" post as 13% behind the #1 Google post, which out performed #10 by 62%. The largest gap was 28%, between #4 and #5.

Once again, we see that headlines mentioning major players in your target market tend to grab more attention than most others. But that doesn't mean that other themes -- particularly themes that are closely associated with you -- can't also be strong contenders.