Content is indeed King, which means that the title is like the crown sat on his head; it’s the element that will draw people in to see what the rest is all about. With this in mind you need to do all you can to ensure your title gets ranking on those search engines, because it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got the best written blog, if you’re title is poor nobody will read it!
So, the million dollar question is how do you go about creating winning titles that will have people reading your content time and time again? (Or at least finding it through search engines and then all importantly clicking on it!)
The Big W’s!
Any journalist will tell you that to create a news story they follow the basis of the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, why) and although not all of these will relate to your title you have to consider at least 3:
- Who: Think about your target audience as this will have a huge effect on the both the title and the content that is written, it will also give you the chance to think about what they want to read;
- What: It sounds obvious but consider what you are trying to say. Have you got a particular message that you are portraying? If so, this will be a great place to start creating your title!
- When: This is probably the last W to think about, but if you’re running an on-going SEO campaign and are creating titles in advance you may not consider the time of year a certain article will be published live on the web. It’s no good writing about Christmas if it won’t be live until February!
Write for the Reader
So many SEO companies fall into the bad habit of writing more for the search engines than for the consumer, if this is something you’re doing – stop! You may get rankings but you won’t get click-throughs and the conversion will be low (sometimes it’s not always about getting to page 1, position 1; sorry to be the bearer of bad news!)
Firstly, what does your audience want to read? What will make them click on that link in the author bio and invest in your service or product?
You need to be writing content that benefits them in some way, how to guides, top tips, advantages and disadvantages, this will also aid with SEO benefit as its key to what people will be searching for; many of the top search phrases are how-to’s and a guide, write this kind of title (and then follow up in your content) and you’ll be laughing!
Looking Good, Sounding Good and Feeling Good!
It might not be as essential as some of the above points, but it’s important that your title looks and sounds good. The length that seems to work best is 7-9 words; generally because this fits onto just one line!
In regards to sound, say your title out loud – does it roll off your tongue easily? Alliteration always works well, and it’ll make it memorable for your reader; so they will be coming back to read it again, or pointing other people in the direction of your content!
OK, so you can’t physically feel your title but it’s about what your reader takes from it – don’t set them up for a huge fall. Your title has to deliver on what is expected. ( i.e. if you go about writing a title that claims “How to do all SEO” and then you write 100 words on the benefits of using long tail keywords your reader won’t stay long, and your conversion will be low) so don’t promise something you can’t deliver on in the main body of the article!
Getting the right title will put you in the race to getting the best content on the web; you’ll be winning gold in no time by getting your thinking cap on and creating truly tantalizing titles to draw your readers in.
This was written by Sally Powell, on behalf of Creare, a leading SEO company that specialise in getting your business ranking, and building websites that make you money.