Headlines change the fate of your post.
A few words at the start of your blog post can be the difference between it being read and spreading like a virus through the web like wildfire and it languishing in your archives, barely noticed.
This month we’ve talked about how to ‘make’ a blog post and looked at key moments in blog post writing where it’s important to pause and put in a little extra effort.
Even though there are usually only a few words in your post title – they are the most powerful words you will ever write because for most of your readers, the decision of whether to read the rest of your post is up to them.
Why Blog Post Titles Matter
Blog post titles appear in:
- Search engine results
- RSS feed
- Links from other bloggers
- Social media sites
- On your archive page (depending on how you format it)
In each of these instances, the headline can be the only thing people see and the only thing that makes people decide to visit your post. Write a title that is boring, complicated or confusing and it doesn’t matter what you write in the post – very few people will read it.
What Should a Good Blog Post Title Do?
There are many techniques that copywriters use in composing headlines both online and offline – but generally there is one common goal behind them all. This can be summed up in the words of David Ogilvy who in Ogilvy on Advertising (a great copywriting book) repeatedly echoes the refrain that:
“the purpose of a headline is to get potential readers to read the first line of your content.”
This is one of the lessons that has helped me the most in my own blogging and I have seen its power time and time again.
Write a catchy and interesting title and you will attract people to read it every time.
How to Create Blog Post Titles – 8 Tips
How do you create a blog post title that makes people read the opening line of your blog post?
There are many techniques for creating blog post titles that will attract readers to them. Below I’ll outline a few (you won’t be able to do them all in each post).
Before I share – let me give you one universal tip – Do not rush – this is the main point of this entire content creation series. If there’s nothing else to gain today – remember that if you rush your title, you could end up wasting the time you invested in your actual post. Invest time in your posts, it’s something that will pay off!
Now let’s take some time – here are 8 tips I use when creating blog post titles. Notes: chances are you won’t use them all in one post (although for fun I did my best to include some of them in the image captions above). Different techniques will work better in different situations.
1. Communicate Benefits
This is VERY IMPORTANT. If potential readers find your post in Google search results or your RSS feed or on a site like Digg and they see a title that promises to meet their needs – they will click on the link almost every chance they get. Identify potential readers’ needs (we talked about this in yesterday’s post) and communicate that your post will solve your title’s problem or need. This is why posts with titles like ‘How to Hold a Digital Camera’ and ’10 Ways to Take Amazing Portraits’ (LINKSSSSSSS) have driven hundreds of thousands of readers to my photography blog in the last year. They aren’t ‘clever’ or ‘cryptic’ titles – they just SCREAM to the people who see them, what they will get if they visit the post. These titles won’t appeal to everyone who sees them, but they will definitely appeal to people with the needs you’re addressing.
2. Cause controversy or debate
Another technique that is very good at getting people interested in a post is to create controversy, debate, or strong opinions. You have to be willing to support these kinds of titles with posts that reflect them – but controversy is one of the things that tends to interest people. Remember that when you create controversy, you will attract strong reactions from people.
3. Ask Questions
When you ask a question, those who read it are programmed to respond (or see what the response is). I find that questions in post titles can be very popular because they not only attract readers – but are very effective in getting readers to leave comments – especially if the comment directs the question to the reader (i.e. uses the word YOU in the question) rather than just being a random question. I’ll write more about title personalization below.
4. Personalize the Title
When you write a blog post, you are potentially writing to a wide audience of thousands of readers – but readers may feel like the post is laser-targeted to their specific situation, especially if you personalize the language you use. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use the word ‘you’ in your posts. I wrote a bit about this in First Person Blogging about ‘you’ but mainly talked about using the word ‘you’ in the post itself but in the title of your post it can have a bigger impact. Example – 21 Ways to Make Yours Sticky Blog or Website.
5. Use Keywords
Keywords in titles are good for two main reasons:
- First, they grab the attention of readers scanning the content – I noticed this recently when I was in purchase mode looking for an iPhone. Every time there’s a post in my RSS feed that says ‘iPhone’, it’s like a light flashes and catches my attention. I almost couldn’t help it but because I was looking for information to help me make that purchase, those keywords really caught my eye.
- Second – keywords are important for the longevity of your blog posts because they tell search engines what your blog post is about and will help it rank high for those words. Search engines pay special attention to titles to determine what a web page is about – especially if you also use the words ‘title tag’ on your page (read more about title tags and SEO).
So use keywords related to your post in your title. This is a particularly useful tip if you are writing about a product, person or company as these types of ‘names’ are the most searched terms on the web.
One more tip for keywords – if you can include them at the beginning of the title, they have a bigger impact on SEO than if you include them at the end of the title (especially if the title is long).
6. Use Power Words
Not all words are created equal – some words evoke strong responses from readers and it’s a good idea to find out what they are.
It’s hard to put together a list of these ‘power words’ but a few I think could work (although read my disclaimer below):
- Free – There is something about the idea of getting something for free that triggers a response in most of us.
- Stunning – I often use words like ‘stunning’ on my photography blog. These words are the ‘big claims’ words that draw people to the post to see if it’s a good fit (see below for more on ‘big claims’)
- Find – everyone likes to make discoveries. Another related word is ‘revealed’.
- Confidential – it triggers a response because it promises to show you something you didn’t already know. Likewise – you can use ‘Little Known Ways to…’ as an alternative to ‘secret’.
- Easy – similar to ‘free’ – we all like ‘easy’ don’t we? – also use ‘fast’. Better yet – how about ‘quick and easy’?
Disclaimer – Power words can be very beneficial, but they can also trigger negative reactions. Some people become skeptical when they see a title with words like this and refuse to click on it – others will click but get angry if the post itself doesn’t live up to the title. Proceed with caution.
7. Big Claims and Promises
I already mentioned this technique but it needs to be explored further as it is a surefire way to attract people to posts. Making little claims or promises really covers my first technique – ‘Communicate Benefits’ – but takes it to the point where the benefits shared in the title cannot be ignored.
This kind of ‘big claim’ guarantees that even people who don’t really need your topic will want to read it.
The only problem with big claim posts is that if you can’t back them up with the post itself, you risk confusing your readers.
8. Humorous Title
A cute headline is another technique that can be very effective at attracting readers to your blog – IF you do it.
The risk with funny posts is that they can also fail and leave you with a post title that not only fails to attract loyal readers but is also not well optimized for search engines (unless you manage to include some keywords).
Two More Quick Tips on Writing Blog Posts:
Keep it short – while it’s possible to really grab people’s attention with a very long headline (the length itself can draw people to the headline) – in most cases, you’re better off keeping it simple and easy to digest. This is good for readers but also search engines (they will only display 65 characters or so so if you are too long, your full title will not appear in search results).
Do not use Point (dot) – this one may just be my personal preference and is open to debate (although I’ve seen a number of copywriters talk about it) but using a period or ‘full stop’ at the end of a headline can stop your reader’s flow. It’s not big, but it can have a big impact.
More Readers on Blog Post Titles:
- Andy Beal wrote a thought-provoking post – How to Optimize Blog Post Titles – where he explores two blog post audiences and how he suggests you optimize titles for each at different stages of a post’s life.
- Brian Clark has written some fantastic posts on Blog Post Headlines in his Magnetic Headlines series. It includes several title templates that are worth checking out.
- Coschedule – the tool we use to schedule blog and social media posts – also has a very useful free Headline Analyzer tool that gives you feedback to help you improve your titles.
What have you learned about writing blog post titles? Do you use some of the approaches above or have you found another technique that works for you?
Read the Complete Series
This post is part of a series on how to create blog posts. This would be even more powerful if taken in the context of a complete series that saw 10 points in the post process to pause and put in extra effort. Start reading the series here.
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.