Your blog content only matters if people read it, and your title is what is going to convince people to do so. But, titles can also sometimes be the hardest part of a post to craft. Especially if you generate a lot of content, you’ll probably find you instinctively tend to use similar titles for many of your blog posts—which is a no-go for SEO and for enticing your regular readers. To create effective and bold blog post titles, check out our five strategies below.
5 Ways to Give Your Blog Post Titles a Creative Boost
1. Be Controversial to Get People Talking
Say something controversial, and people who both agree and disagree with you are more likely to want to read more—or tell you how wrong you are. Get creative and find a way to describe your posts that are about more mundane topics using a controversial header. Tell someone that “Blog Post Titles Are Useless” and they will wonder what you know that they don’t.
2. Be Relevant
Nothing draws in readers more than a sense of familiarity, so inserting pop culture or other recognizable references into your titles can help make them timely and increase the chance they go viral. As expert Mari Smith (@MariSmith) advises: “Creating and curating the best quality content on a consistent basis, that is timely and relevant for your audience, is the first step towards successful content marketing.” (Source: marismith.com)
Your content needs to be relevant, and so do your titles. “7 Ways Kim Kardashian’s Blog Titles Are Better Than Yours” is a bit more compelling than “How to Improve Blog Titles,” and can get your point across in a unique way. Not to mention, referencing pop culture can make it much easier to craft those controversial headlines.
3. Ask Questions in Your Blog Post Titles
“Are Your Blog Post Titles Costing You Page Views?” Asking a question engages your audience and makes readers far more likely to want to know the answer. This is particularly useful if you can plant the seed that they have to know what you are going to tell them.
4. Get Creative with Word Play
Using words creatively can be an excellent blog post title hack, particularly when you’re struggling to come up with something original. Alliteration—using words with the same first letter—jazzes up your words a bit, giving them more impact. Don’t get too elaborate though or your titles will become unreadable.
5. Shorter Blog Post Titles are Better
You want your title to read as naturally as possible, but staying on the shorter side can help with your SEO and with sharing posts on social media. Ultimately, what you say matters more than how many words you say it in, but a good rule of thumb is to keep titles between 8 and 12 words. Not only will this increase CTRs, but it is also the ideal shareable length for Twitter, which is one of the top networks for promoting blog posts.
