Ever written a brilliant piece of content, then been stumped when it doesn’t receive the click-through rate it deserves? Well, it may have been because your blog’s title was rather uninspiring. And by uninspiring, I just mean a bit crap.
For many content writers, titles aren’t really a part of the blog you want to spend too much time over. After you’ve stuffed them full of SEO keywords and made sure they vaguely summarise the blog’s content, it’s pretty much job done. Or so you think.
The problem with half-hearted blog titles is that they’re unlikely to get you the links and social shares you’re after. Your blog’s title is usually the one chance you’ve got to get people to read your content, so spending a little more time on it is certainly going to be worth your while.
Not to mention, shouting over the onslaught of content already jostling for attention on your Facebook feed is difficult enough, and giving your blog title a snore name isn’t going to help matters. Yep, a snore name. A name so dull it makes you snore.
So, how can you transform your blog titles from snore names into headlines that are going to make the world sit up and listen?
Luckily, there are a few quick tricks that’ll instantly take your title from blah to bloody brilliant – so don’t worry, you won’t have to explain to Client Services why you’ve spent an hour coming up with one blog title.
If you’re struggling straight off the bat, start by using one of these tried and tested blog title formats:
- List posts
- “How to” titles
- Question headlines
Why these types of titles, you ask? Well, a while ago Buzzsumo teamed up with OkDork to find out the secrets behind why content goes viral, and it was discovered that these types of blogs were amongst the most shared forms of content. According to the research, they’re even more likely to get shared than videos.
Once you’ve decided on your title structure, you need to get your title triggering an emotional response. A great tool for this is CoSchedule’s Headline Analyser, which will literally tell you how strong your title is. Effective titles will have a mix of word types that trigger emotional reactions and command action. Handily, CoSchedule have aptly named these words ‘Emotional Words’ and ‘Power Words’ – so it’s all pretty easy to follow.
Although, if you’re sat there wondering, what the hell is a ‘Power Word’?! They’re basically just buzz words such as successful, fascinating, suddenly and growth. If that doesn’t clear things up, check out these other Power Word examples that’ll make your title far more engaging.
So, there you have it! Pick a title structure, pump it with emotive language, make sure it’s the right length, throw in a few SEO keywords and voilà! You’ve gone from snore name syndrome to blog title master.
Not sure what to write next? Why not give content curation a go – marketing’s answer to upcycling!