Category: Software

Generate Eye-Catching Titles for Content Using This Free Tool

The most important component of any written content is the title, whether it’s an ad or an article. If the title doesn’t spark interest, the reader will move on and the content probably won’t be read. For some, writing titles is an innate skill. For the rest of us, there are tools that can help.

The website I am highlighting today is Headline Analyzer from Monster Insights, but it is far from the only free tool on offer. Coschedule has one, as does Sharethrough. If you are creating content for a WordPress blog, some search engine optimization plugins, like All in One SEO, have a similar feature built-in. Keep in mind, though, that they may not all have the criteria for what makes a great headline. I used Monster Insights to create the headline for this article (of “perfect” length), only to have All in One SEO tell me it was too long by a single character.

Another caveat about these tools is that you can create a high-scoring title that makes no sense, just by using desirable keywords and staying within a certain number of characters. You can also accidentally create a title that people think is simply clickbait (named so because it goes overboard on keywords to generate clicks that lead people to unsatisfying, ad-loaded pages). These days, most people just skip clicking on over-the-top titles, so you’ll want to avoid that.

Analyzing a Headline

When you have a draft headline that you would like to test, type or paste it into the box at https://www.monsterinsights.com/headline-analyzer and click “Analyze.” The score will pop up below the box.

Screenshot showing an overall score of 73, noting a good score is between 40 and 60.
The score for the current title of this article is 73

According to their parameters, this title is good to go. But this wasn’t the first title I tried. This tool tracks your tries to help you remember what configurations you have already used.

Screenshot showing previous draft titles and their subpar scores.
A few earlier draft titles

As the screenshot demonstrates, even the order of the words in the title can make a big difference in the score.

Improving a Headline

If your first draft isn’t getting the score you hoped for, the tool will give several suggestions on how to improve the title.

First, the “word balance” area will show you how many words you are using from each category, and how many you should shoot for.

Screenshot showing the balance of common words, uncommon words, emotional words, and power words used in the title.

Scrolling farther down, word banks are provided to give you suggestions for words in each category:

Screenshot showing columns of power words, emotion words, and uncommon words.
Word banks to help you fine-tune your title

Another area points out the tone and type of your headline and offers suggestions.

Screenshot showing the sentiment is positive and that positive headlines get better engagement. The type is "general", and lists and how-to headlines get more engagement.

I could have added “How to” at the beginning of the title, but then it would have been too long. The word I choose to cut may then affect the word balance negatively. Ultimately, the final title is up to what sounds good to you and what fits in with the writing style of your content.

Summary

Creating a great headline is a balance of several factors, and there is no one perfect title for any piece of content. Hopefully, a headline analyzer can provide you with enough guidance to tweak your titles to improve engagement, regardless of which suggestions you take and which you ignore. Do you have a favorite tool to help you write your headlines? Let us know in the comments.

Learn How to Limit What Facebook Advertisers Know About You

If you have used Facebook, you have seen an ad. There’s no getting around it, and unfortunately, there is no way to completely block ads on the platform. However, you do have some control over your ad settings, including which types of ads you see and what information of yours advertisers can access.

The methods to change your Ad Settings are slightly different based on how you access Facebook.

If you are accessing Facebook via a computer, click on your profile picture in the top right corner and then click on Settings & Privacy, and then Settings. In the app, tap on the three lines in the bottom right corner (iOS) or top right (Android), then swipe down to Settings & Privacy, and then tap on Settings.

Next, on a computer click on Ads on the menu on the left side. On the mobile app, swipe down and tap on Ad preferences. From here, the settings are in similar locations.

Screenshots showing the path of clicks to get to Ad preferences on desktop and mobile

On the Advertisers tab, you will have the option to hide ads from advertisers you have seen recently. You can also see advertisers you have hidden and advertisers whose ads you’ve clicked. On the Ad Topics tab, you can select which types of topics advertisers can use to reach you. If you click or tap on a specific category, you can choose to leave the setting as is or see less of that particular topic.

Screenshot of an ad topic with the option to see less or show no preference.

On the Ad Settings tab, you can manage whether or not you receive personalized ads. “Data about your activity from partners” allows you to choose whether Facebook shows you personalized ads on Facebook and Instagram, if you have an Instagram account. If this option is set to yes, Facebook will allow advertisers to use data from your activity on Meta products, which include Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Facebook Marketplace, and other Meta Apps. With any options with a radio yes/no button, gray signifies don’t allow and blue signifies allow.

Screenshot of the "Data about your activity from partners" page with toggles for personalized ad on Instagram and Facebook turned off.

Under “Categories used to reach you,” you can select whether you would like an advertiser to be able to target you based on the information you have provided in your profile: Employer, Job Title, Education (any schools you have listed), and Relationship Status. You may also have an “Other categories” option depending on how much personal information you have provided in your profile. Each type of profile information (e.g. employer, education) has its own yes or no option.

Screenshot of "Categories used to reach you" with toggles for employer, education, job title, and relationship status turned off.

The “Audience Based Advertising” setting allows you to see to which advertisers have accessed lists that contain certain information from your profile. For example, an advertiser may pay for a list containing everyone who is female, aged 25-35, and lives in the United States. The birth date field is required to join Facebook, and gender and location are in the basic info section of your profile. You can see which companies have used these lists.

If you click on the company name and then click on “they uploaded or used a list to reach you,” you can get the option to allow or not allow advertisers to use this particular list on Facebook to show you ads. You may also have the option to contact that particular company. If you would like that company to not be able to use that particular uploaded list to show you ads, click on don’t allow. If you have already chosen that, you will see an allow button.

Screenshot showing how to restrict a particular company from using you a list to reach you

The “Ads shown off of Facebook” setting allows you to decide whether you can be shown ads off of Facebook Company Products, such as on non-Facebook websites and apps that use Facebook advertising services.

Screenshot of "Ads shown off of Facebook" toggle off.

The “social interactions” setting lets you choose whether or not your friends can see if you have liked a certain page that is being advertised. For example, if you have liked the Hannaford Facebook page, and Hannaford runs an ad, if you allow your friends to see, there will be a message next to the page name on their feed saying that you liked that particular page.

Screenshot of the "social interactions" setting that allows or restricts friends from seeing if you have liked a page in an ad.

There are several different ways that you can limit what information advertisers can find out about from your Facebook profile. It’s a good idea to access your ad settings to see what information is being shown to advertisers. With any social media, it’s always a good idea not to share too much information. You may think it’s just your friends and family who are seeing it, but often times that same information is being accessed by advertisers.

Have you had the chance to go over your ad settings on Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

How To Manipulate Images In Pixlr X

You may remember the free browser image tool PixlrX from my post about using it to resize images easily. I have used it to create images from scratch, but I find it very similar to the free version of Canva. Because the library has a Pro subscription to Canva, I tend to use that platform for the additional features.

If you do not have a pro subscription to Canva, you may want to consider Pixlr X as your main image creator and editor. In addition to all of the typical features you would expect, it also has some pretty great effects available. Check out these TechConnect videos created by New York Public Library that demonstrate how to use some of these enhancements.

Because these processes are not always intuitive, here is a site that demonstrates to how save Pixlr images to your device. If you’re looking for more tips and tutorials for working with Pixlr, the Pixlr blog is a wealth of information.

Have you tried Pixlr X, or do you have another favorite image editor? Let us know about it in the comments.

Learn More About Your Unique Family History with Ancestry

Ancestry is one of the big names in genealogy research. Their database contains thousands of records including US Census Records, Birth, Marriage, Death, Military records, and more. During the pandemic, Ancestry offered home access to its library database with your library card. Now that most libraries are open to the public, ProQuest has once again required Ancestry Library to be accessed within the library by either using a library computer or with a device connected to the library’s WiFi network.

You can search for a specific person by entering the first and last name and other optional information such as places they have lived or the year they were born. You can also add optional information such a particular family member, occupation, and their race/nationality.

In addition to searching, you can also explore record collections of Census and Voter Lists, Birth, Marriage and Death Records, and Military Records.

If you would like to learn more about how to Ancestry Library Edition, check out our YouTube video tutorial:

Have you tried out the Ancestry Library edition? Let us know in the comments.

Restore Your Precious Old Photos with This Free Tool

We have highlighted several artificial intelligence (AI) tools on this blog lately because it is being used to power so many emerging trends and tools. Many folks think of AI as a sort of substitute human, owing to the early days of automated telephone customer service up through the sophisticated Alexa/Siri/Google digital assistants, I’m sure movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Robocop, Terminator, Her, and so on, helped solidify this image. In fact, artificial intelligence can just be a really good algorithm that can learn from experience and patterns. Examples of AI without names or faces would be software that creates deep fake videos, creates images from text, or writes copy for you based on key points.

The tool we’d like to share today doesn’t have an exciting name or website, but what it can do seems like magic. It is so simple to use that there is zero learning curve. If you can attach something to an email, you can restore your photos. Intrigued? So was I.

GFP-GAN

This wonder tool is called GFP-GAN. You can either use the demo version at Baseten as I did, or you can download the code for free from GitHub. The demo page invites you to upload your own photo or choose one of their photos to restore. You are given the option to download the restored image.

I clicked on their image of Harriet Tubman and the cleaned-up version was so good I wondered if there had been manual intervention in the restoration:

Original and restored portrait images of Harriet Tubman in black and white side-by-side

Next, I tried my own photo from the 1970s:

Original image on left of slightly blurry Mom holding a baby with the restored image less blurry on the right

This is a less stunning transformation, but the restored version is definitely less blurry.

I didn’t have any really rough images to try, but in my research about the tool, I found an article demonstrating some really amazing restorations, as well as going into deep detail about how the tool works. Here is the one that made me sure I wanted to write about this tool:

Original photo of a woman's face is torn, creased and faded on the left, and the restoration on the right is crystal clear

The AI “looks” at the image to find patterns, and then fills in what it determines is most likely to fill in the damaged parts. Because the image I uploaded was just blurry instead of damaged, there wasn’t much to fix or fill in.

Would You Use GFP-GAN?

Do you have old photos you would like to restore, but don’t have the expertise or equipment to do it yourself? Professional photo restoration is expensive, but this free tool may be just what you need to clean up your treasured image collection. Have you tried the tool? We’d love to know how your restorations turned out. Let us know in the comments!