You have been running a solid blog. You have embraced content marketing. But while you’re posting up a storm and creating killer content, you feel that something is missing… a reliable audience.
No matter how awesome the blog you’re running is, it doesn’t matter if people aren’t motivated to read it. You need your potential audience to click through to your page, but how?
While people are lectured not to judge a book by its cover, make no mistake—they sure are judging your blog post by its title. The title of your post is what drives readers to your blog and is the deciding factor of whether someone chooses to stay with you or abandons ship.
It’s a lot of pressure for one little headline (especially for this particular post… yikes), but don't worry! The DSM Group is here to help. Here is our comprehensive guide, sharing the best tips to write a killer blog post title that drives people to your page.
Know Your Audience
You can’t do anything without identifying who your readers are first, or you risk heading in the completely wrong direction. Simply, if you don’t tailor to your audience, they won’t come. Think: what motivates your intended readers? How familiar are they with the knowledge you’re about to present to them? What terminology do they use day-to-day? What does your target find funny? What offends them?
If your readers are more advanced, including terms like “Beginner,” “101,” “for Dummies” or “Intro” in your title is most likely going to insult them. If your target is new to the information you’re sharing, using industry-specific terminology in the title will cause confusion. As a result, your almost-readers will search for a different post that is aimed more at their skill level.
The Keyword Balancing Act
Now that you know your audience, you probably have a good idea of what they are searching for. Use this to your advantage! Make sure to incorporate these keywords into your blog post title—not only will this help you rank in Google searches, but it shows the searcher that you have the answer to the problem they are looking to resolve, and therefore they should click your page over the others.
Deciding how to incorporate the keywords into your title is up to you. However, you need to make sure to find a balance. Overloading keywords into your post’s name makes you look spammy, like you’re grubbing for readership. On the other hand, incorporating few keywords into the title doesn’t make your blog post favorable in a sea of search results, if it even comes up at all.
Remember, Google bolds the searched-for keywords in its results. If you choose not to utilize the right keywords in your blog title, your competitors’ will show up bold and beautiful… and your un-bolded result will look a little “meh” in comparison.
Need a little help? Just think of the exact phrase your audience is most likely searching for in order to find content like yours. In your title, try to incorporate that phrase’s major elements in a unique way that draws attention to your post.
It’s Not Me, It’s You
Your readers are driven by their desires. That being said, it’s important to remember that they’re not looking through your blog post to read all about you. They want to know what valuable information you can provide them to make them more knowledgeable.
Make your blog title about them, not you. Offer a solution to a problem your audience is having, expressing the urgency that your post should be read over others. Appeal to your audience’s curiosity in your blog post title by displaying that you have tips, secrets, “how to” steps and cutting-edge information that they can benefit from now. More verbs and fewer nouns in your title creates higher traffic, motivating potential readers to take action and click through to your blog.
Guess and Check—Not Just for Math Problems
Chances are the first blog post title that you thought of is not the one you should go with (no offense). But, that’s okay, you can think of an even better one by buckling down and working at it.
Write a bunch of possible titles, changing words around, interchanging adjectives and playing with format. You’ll be surprised with what else you can come up with by expanding on your initial thought.
When you have plenty of options, run them by other people to get feedback. Take note of the ones that get the most reaction, and narrow them down from there. Once you feel like you have a viable solution, turn to search engines. Look up the topic that you wrote about and see what other results came up. How does your title compare? Objectively, would you click your blog title over the others there? Is your title unique yet informative enough? Is it too boring? Adjust as necessary.
Final Thoughts
Remember, while your title should demand people’s attention, make sure you are representing what your audience is actually going to read. Being misleading in order to gain traffic is transparent to others, and they will likely think your site is untrustworthy and unreliable.
Whatever you decide, do your blog content justice. Your post deserves to be read, so give it more of an opportunity to be by following these secrets to a clickable blog title.