The Art and Science of Writing Good Titles

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Crafting a good title for your pages or blog posts is aproblem many people struggle with. Do you focus on keywords or on attention grabbing formulas? Hopefully this post will give you someinsight into how to write better titles.The difficulty with crafting good titlesis that it’s part science and part art, and you have to know whento lean in one direction or the other. To illustrate my point, I’mgoing to take the same concept and show you variations you woulduse for different purposes.

All three of these are similar butdistinctly different posts. They will have different content andeditorial styles …Are you creating a page to drive sales,capture leads, or make conversions? If you are, you want to focusstrictly on keywords and give little if any concern to beingsensational or even slightly creative. An example would be:

DisneyWorld Discount Hotel Rooms

Are you going for a social link baitingtype of piece? If you are, then you want a title that is a bitsensational and kicks your readers in the teeth. Try something like:

Secrets DisneyDoesn’t Want You to Know About: Saving Money on Hotel Rooms

Are youtrying to catch users who are in the research phase of theirprocess but haven’t entered the sales funnel yet? If you are, youwant a title that answers a question, solves a problem,or lets users know they are on the information scent. Anexample of this would be:

How to Book a Cheap Disney Hotel Room

Thequestion that many people now ask is which of those three versionsdo they want? The answer is all three. Some people try to save somemoney on content creation and combine all three into one article, but this is recipe for disaster. All three of these are similar butdistinctly different posts. They will have different content andeditorial styles and should be different posts (see writing narrowly focused posts). Once you have all three created, tie themtogether with interlinking or with head and tail concept. Thelast mistake people make is using misleading titles. I’ve seen alot of people use sensational style titles to try and gain linksbut then put conversion based content on the page. This is aformula for getting a lot of pissed off users looking for socialcontent who won’t buy a thing (see when you’re title is linkbait but your post isn’t)

So what are the takeaways from thispost:

• Determine what the intent of the page is: conversions, links,or information?
• Choose the title based on the intent of the page
• Make sure the content matches the title and purpose of the page
• Bemindful of singular and plural terms
• Don’t ignoreopportunities to optimize your post slugs

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This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review. The Art and Science of Writing Good Titles

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