How To Write Catchy Blog Post Title That Gets Clicked Like Crazy
Blogging has become synonymous with content marketing strategy. Every single day, millions of people seek information about products and services online and blog posts regularly serve those needs.
But, without the right use of keywords and SEO header tags, your blog post will end up lost in the web that is the Internet.
An entertaining and eye-catching headline can help a blog post (that might otherwise have gone unnoticed) get thousands of social shares, hundreds of comments, and a boost in Google rankings.
Write a boring title, however, and even the best blog post will get skipped.
How To Write Effective Blog Post Titles
Know Your Target Audience
Age, sex, location, interests, experience – these are all important for ensuring that readers pay attention.
Think about where the title will appear
Google only shows around 70 characters, short titles works better on email etc. Think about all the locations you’re publishing and tweak to suit them.
Know the exact keywords you’re hitting
Include the exact keyword in the title somewhere.
Pick a single headline strategy
Scarcity, time sensitivity, numbers, news, etc.
Improve your competition’s efforts
Check your competitors and see if they have a successful title you can improve on.
Constantly edit the title for perfection
Keep editing as you write. Sometimes it takes 50+ revisions to get something really solid.
Publish it but test different versions
Change your headlines over time and test to see which one converts best on various platforms.
What makes for an effective post title?
Title should be eye catchy
The very first thing a title needs to do is catch someone’s eye whether they see it in an email, Facebook feed, Tweet or whatever. Cutting through the noise is hard.
It should get a click
The next thing you need to do is get them to click through to read it. This is much more difficult than it sounds – some formats only have 0.5 to 1% click-through rates.
Should cause an engagement or action
Some people will share or like an article simple based on whether they think their friends will like the article’s title. More likely, however, is that your title encourages someone to read your excellent content.
Should assist your long-term Google Rankings
A good title not only gets people interested in the article but also helps you to rank well on Google. You might write a title that you really love and think is clever, but unless it is leading to these types of responses you will be wasting your time.
Do proper Keyword Research
Keyword research is extremely important and it plays a major role in determining whether your blog post is a hit or a miss.
By doing diligent research on your keywords, you can easily learn a lot more about the customers you’re targeting and directing to your website.
Following are a few keyword research tools that can aid your cause:
- KeywordSpy
- Moz Analytics’ Keyword Analysis Tool
- SECockpit
- UberSuggest
- KeywordTool
Keep it short but unique
Too often blog post titles get lost under a pile of thousands of other creative blog post names because of the failure to engage the user by using generic keywords and making it too long.
Cutting through the noise is hard because of the sheer volume of awesome blog post titles on the internet so make sure yours is distinct, short, attractive and thereby search engine friendly.
Try keeping your blog post titles fewer than 55 characters because Google invariably cuts out titles not under 55 characters.
Use your keywords the right way
Appropriate usage of keywords throughout your blog post in general and the title, in particular, is of utmost importance.
However, keyword stuffing should be avoided at any cost because users already know what the article is all about when they click, and blatant keyword stuffing will just put a user off for good.
Keyword usage should be subtle to maintain good readability and to get more social shares.
In the end, writing effective titles is just like any other skill that you want to develop – it takes study, practice and a lot of testing to get it right.