A headline such as “10 Ways To…” or “12 Tools That…” will often draw in the reader since they know they’re going to get a finite list of (usually) quick ideas, tools, tips, or so on. If you look at popular blog posts on Digg or del.icio.us you’ll often see these types of headlines on the sites.
That said, there’s a limit. The human brain can easily digest a list of a dozen items. However when I see a headline come across my aggregator that reads 120+ Resources for Bloggers I’m going to completely ignore the article. Why? Because I don’t have the time to process that long of a list. Break it down for me. If that list of 120 items really is a list of 120 related items… well… narrow it down and only show me the top 10. If that list of 120 items is really 12 lists of 10 items… then make them separate lists. Don’t lump theme together into one big list I have to waste my time parsing.
Provide value for your reader. Saying “Here’s a huge list of everything” isn’t value.
