Readers decide immediately whether they are going to use their valuable time to read your blog post. They decide by scanning your blog title and determining whether it appears to be worth their minutes.
You get one chance to make them click. You have to take advantage of that opportunity.
A good blog title:
- Attracts attention,
- summarizes the post,
- organizes content, and
- depicts the post’s tone.
Just a few words should be simple to write, but titles often are difficult. It’s challenging to capture tone, voice and content in a unique and short manner.
Here are 23 tips for writing click worthy blog titles:
1. Understand your readers
Think about your readers and what they want to read. What title would make them stop and consider your post?
2. Keep them simple
The title should be just a few words (three to five is a good number) that are simple and easily understood at a glance.
3. Avoid false promises
Your title shouldn’t make promises that your post’s content can’t keep. Avoid overstating your post’s purpose or exaggerating its content.
4. Use strong verbs
Use strong action verbs in your titles. Avoid passive verbs and “be” verbs.
5. Set the tone
Set the tone for your post’s content through the words you choose. Also, remember that your post titles as a unit should reflect your blog’s purpose and tone.
6. Use good grammar
You don’t want a title to be the train wreck that begins an error-laden post. Worse, you don’t want the title to incorrectly suggest to the reader that your content is written poorly.
7. Check spelling
Misspellings ruin credibility. Don’t ruin your blog’s credibility before the reader has even clicked on a post.
8. Write casually
Think about how you would explain your post’s content to a friend. Write your title in that manner.
9. Include a number
Scannable list posts are popular among blog readers. If your post is a numbered list, use the number of items in the title.
10. Indicate benefits
What does the reader get from reading the post? Why should they read it? Make this obvious by the words you choose for your title.
11. Teach something
If your post tells your reader how to do something, include “how to” at the beginning of the title. “How to” posts also are popular among blog readers.
12. Tease them
Intrigue the reader. Lure them in with your creative writing.
13. Avoid punctuation
Titles generally don’t include punctuation at the end. There are three exceptions. First, use a comma to indicate the word “and.” Second, use single quotes to show if you are quoting a source. Third, use a question mark at the end if your post title asks a question.
14. Consider meanings
Look for other, unintended meanings in your post’s title.
15. Stay positive
Be positive, unless you can’t. No one wants to read someone whining and complaining.
16. Avoid names
Don’t use names that aren’t easily recognizable by the majority of your readers.
17. Avoid labeling
Titles should have subjects, verbs and objects. Avoid just writing verbless labels for posts.
18. Ask a question
It’s acceptable to ask readers a question in your blog title, but only if the post’s content provides an answer. Posts with question headlines also are popular and frequently read/shared among blog readers.
19. Avoid bad taste
Sexists or racist language, stereotypes and profanity should be avoided in blog titles.
20. Use word association
Word association, creating mental images and alliteration are all encouraged in blog titles.
21. Avoid abbreviations
You don’t want the reader to get lost in alphabet soup.
22. Use keywords
Include the most important words related to your post’s content in your title. This also will help search engines identify your post.
23. Write and rewrite
Don’t settle for a crappy title. Keep writing until you get it right. However, I recommend brainstorming title options on paper. Otherwise, you may find that your best idea was the title you wrote three times ago, but you no longer remember what it said.
Readers decide immediately when reading your blog title whether they are going to read your post. You get one chance to make them click. What advice do you have for making that happen?
