How to Craft Good Article Titles

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had several conversations about blog titles and how important they are. While clever, quirky or even witty blog titles are tempting they may be on one of the easiest things to correct which is preventing you from increased readership. Since people tend to scan more than read online, a clear, simple, to-the-point title for your article is essential. Good titles do several things for you including:

1. Being good for your Search Engine Optimization: Make sure your title has the keywords that speak to what is in the article
2. The grab attention no matter the medium, remember, not everyone reads your site on your site, they might be using an RSS reader, DIGG, Google alert, etc… so if the title doesn’t clearly grab their attention they’ll likely skip right over it.
3. Relaying to the reader what they are going to read about.
4. Build trust with the reader. The learn that they will get from you what you say you are going to deliver.

All of this doesn’t mean you can’t get creative with your titles, ask questions in them to entice reading or even get a little humorous, but keep the following things in mind when you name your posts:

1. It should clearly, specifically and as briefly as possible articulate what the article is about.
2. Don’t use more words than necessary
3. After you write the article ask yourself “If I just scanned this headline, would I know what the article is about?”
4. Use terms that most people can understand, less jargon more plain speaking.

If you worry less about trying to be clever and more about just getting to the point you’ll likely reap the benefits and your readers will appreciate it.