“Never judge a book by its cover”, as the old saying goes. Perhaps the blogger version should be “never judge a blog post by its title”. It can be so difficult to write a great blog post title after you’ve spent so much time on the actual post, so we thought it was time to share a few tips on how to easily write a good title.
Be short and sweet
Sounds obvious, but it can be difficult sometimes! Something that gets the point across quickly and effectively will be more attention grabbing than a long descriptive title. Used in combination with some of the other points in this post will help you create a great title.
Ask a question or use a call to action
A call to action is where a title gives a direction to the reader. This can include things like asking a question or giving direction like “How to…” (Hey, guess what we went with for this post!). Questions can also get the reader thinking about their response before they read the post, which means they’re more likely to click through to your post.
Use numbers
Buzzfeed is probably the worst biggest culprit of this – using numbers in a blog post title makes readers more intrigued. How can there be eleven different types of water? You’d click straight away to find out, right? Numbers catch the attention of the reader, and has been shown to increase clicks. (Try not to do it all the time though – if all your posts are number related, it could lose its effectiveness)
Make it searchable
As tempting as it is to use a song title lyric, using something that’s more descriptive is going to be more useful. It’s always a good idea to make your blog posts as search friendly as possible and using strong keywords in the title will help people to find your post.
Use your thesaurus!
Using adjectives can make your blog posts stand out a bit more. Good, nice and OK are, well, ok, but try words like amazing, excellent and outstanding to make the post a bit more intriguing to click through. (Especially important if you have a plugin to auto post old blog posts with just the title!)
What tips do you have for blog post titles?
I am the WORST for coming up with blog titles, I sometimes wish I had gone with outfit n umber 1234 as it would be SO much easier, haha!
Maria xxx
Invariably I come up with a title that’s 100 times better than the one I went with about half an hour after hitting publish!
Short and sweet work best for me I think, leaving a hint of mystery!
M x