The Do’s and Don’ts of Blog Post Titles

The title of a blog post may or may not be as important as the content itself (depending on who’s being asked), but it certainly serves a distinct and important purpose — it draws people in. I’ve read and written on enough blogs to understand what does and does not work. There are no limits, no rules, but there are some basic things you can do to make your blog titles better

I previously wrote about how introductions serve the purpose of selling your article; however, the title of your article is what will grab the attention of the readers. It is the part of the article that should make them want to click to find out more. While I don’t place as much emphasis on titles as other bloggers, I will say that I have likely reached the front pages of several social sites from some crafty and creative titles.

Do’s

Make Titles Relevant

You should always strive to make your titles relevant. As a matter of fact, there is no excuse for them not being so. Nothing annoys readers more than seeing a blog attempting to trick them into reading an article. Relevant titles help users get to the content that they wanted to read in the first place.

Make Use of Keywords

Not only do you want to appeal to your subscribers, but you should also appeal to search engines. Try to imagine what users would be searching for on a site like Google to find their way to your content. The more keywords, the more relevant the search result, the more hits from search engines. You could also try constructing your title in the form of a search result. For example, I would be likely to type in “How to upgrade my Apple MacBook memory” or something similar. If the title of your article closely resembles that, well, you get the idea.

Mix it Up

Predictability is something that can get boring after awhile. Make your titles unique and different. It will increase the chances of your subscribers taking notice, and that means more views. This is especially true if you are bold on linkbaiting content.

Don’ts

Get Cute

I’ve noticed a trend from bloggers that try to get far too creative with their titles. This is obviously an action taken to impress the users of social networks, and while it might succeed, it really is unproductive and inefficient. Most social networks allow the user to type in a title of their own, and many times they do. If it is that important to you, you should just submit the article to the social site in question (if allowed), and give it the title you want.

Make Things Complicated

For some reason, people like to make things more complicated than they should be. Titles should be simple. This could go in hand with being cute with the titles, but some bloggers just literally do not make sense. It is unprofessional, so keep things reasonable.

Be Annoying

Probably one of the best way to lose subscribers would be to annoy them. The best blogs rarely stoop to such levels to almost beg for reads from their subscribers, but many of the smaller bloggers do exactly that. Some great blogs I have managed to subscribe to in the early times become far too commercialized or needy. Don’t let this happen to you.

There are plenty more ways to make excellent titles. Be creative, but be reasonable as well. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments section.