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Whoever said writing a blog was easy, lied! There is so much to keep up with to be successful with your blogging business. Once you get your traffic to grow, you still have to get people to read your posts.
The most important part of your blog post is your title. If you don’t grab your reader’s attention with the title and get them to actually read the post, then all your hard work writing the post won’t matter. It doesn’t matter how great and helpful your content is. It doesn’t matter what offers or affiliate links you have in your post and it doesn’t matter who sponsored the post. If you can’t get your audience to read it, the blog post doesn’t do you much good.
And when it comes to getting free search engine or Pinterest traffic, your title is important as well. It is the most important factor when it comes to getting your content to rank well on Google. Yes, there are plenty of other factors, but the most important thing is to create a good title with just the right keywords.
So how do you go about writing good, attention-grabbing blog post titles? To start off, I suggest you start with a working title for your post and create your content. Then come back and work on the finalized headline, implementing as many of the tips below as you can.
Keep It Interesting but Tell The Truth
Of course, you want to write an attention-grabbing headline. You know the ones that just cry out “Read Me! Read Me!” There can be the temptation to hype it up and stretch the truth just a little bit. While that may get you some extra clicks, there’s a trade-off. You’ll lose credibility if you’re exaggerating or telling little (or big) white lies. You see a lot of those headlines on social media. You click through and end up disappointed because the post doesn’t fulfill what the title promised.
Instead, make it interesting without all the hype and stick to the truth. A great way to do that is to think about what’s in it for your readers. Think about what helpful information you are giving them. That would help you understand how to reach out to them with an attention-grabbing blog title.
Keep It Short and Engaging
Face it! Nobody wants to read a long essay right on the blog post titles. Shorter titles tend to do better both with click-throughs on your blog and social media. Keep it short and to the point. Think about potential engagement as you create the title of your post. Ask your readers a question. Make a statement that makes them think. Put numbers in your titles to get them thinking about what’s in the content (i.e. My 5 Best Tips To …)
Keep an eye out for titles that catch your attention. Copy and paste them into a swipe file and see how you can tweak them for your own needs and audience later on.
Utilize Emotional Words
Blog post titles that use emotional words, whether positive or negative, can work great for getting the reader’s attention. They can make people feel excited or scared. For example, “16 Ways to Avoid Blog Failure!” That’s gonna stand out to me for sure! I don’t want to fail.
Here are great examples of positive emotional words:
- Remarkable
- Fascinating
- Breakthrough
- Promising
- Magic
- Epic
Or you can use some negative words to convey a sense of urgency:
- Overwhelming
- Helpless
- Critical
- Mistake
- Myths
- Desperate
Use Keywords Naturally
Last but not least, don’t forget to work relevant keywords into the blog post titles. I usually do this last. Always write for your readers first and then work in what you need to do to make sure the search engines recognize what your content is about.
Ranking well on Google for something your readers don’t want to read or don’t want to click on doesn’t do you much good. Focus on your audience and then optimize for search as an afterthought and you’ll do well.
Start to implement these tips and get a few blog posts out there. Pay attention to what’s working and what isn’t. Each niche, each blog, and each audience is different. Use these tips as guidelines to help you find your own style that resonates well with your audience and keeps them coming back to read more.
How do you grab readers’ attention?
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