Research has discovered that although 80 percent of users read the titles of blog posts, only 20 percent read the content that follows, reports Wishpond. To increase the readership of your content, therefore, good blog titles are key. Rather than relying on your intuition to create engaging headlines, base your titles around concepts that have been proven to work.
1. Offer New Information or a Fresh Perspective
Everyone is looking to learn something new and expand their knowledge. Use your headlines to express excitement and interest, such as breaking news, to offer exclusive advice from industry experts, or to challenge common beliefs and spark controversy.
2. Catch Attention with Numbers
People enjoy reading numbered lists: they are easy to follow and store to memory. If you want people to remember all the points in your post, stick to no more than 10. However, an alternative strategy is to use obscure numbers to grab attention.
3. Tell Readers How They Will Benefit from Your Content
It should be clear from the title that your content has your audience’s needs in mind and that users will discover something interesting and useful if read on. You can achieve this, for instance, by using trigger words, such as “tips,” “how,” “essential,” “why,” and “easy,” by framing an intriguing question, or by promising to solve a pressing issue. Plus, you can heighten the impact of your title by addressing your audience directly including at least one “you” or “your.”
4. Keep Titles Short and Concise
For social sharing purposes, number of characters is more important than number of words. Try to keep to 117 characters or less, as in Twitter, the 23 characters of your 140 allowance is taken up by the URL and space between the title and link, explains HubSpot. Google calculates by pixels rather than characters, meaning that if you want your title to appear in full on results pages, you need to consider the size of characters rather than the number.
5. Avoid Being Pure Clickbait
Content that leads conversions needs to do far more than simply procure clicks. Good blog titles accurately represent content. This ensures that those who click links are actually interested in what you have to say and will read all the way down to your call-to-action.
6. Include Keywords
It is beneficial to use at least one keyword in your title to improve SEO, therefore improving the chances that your audience even find you content. However, you must use keywords in moderation. Remember, you are writing for your audience, not search engines, and titles that are unclear, longwinded, or lack proper grammar will probably receive very few clicks, even if they do succeed in reaching the top of search engine results.
It is often easier to write good blog titles once you have finished creating your content. However, just because you leave writing headlines until last by no means makes titles unimportant. Spend plenty of time thinking about what title will fit your content, and you will improve both your open rates and conversions.
