"Required reading" for today's smart writer.

"Required reading" for today's smart writer.
Information & inspiration to hone your craft and increase your cash...Since 2009

Thursday, February 2, 2012

3 Easy Steps to a Super Blog Post Title!



GUEST POST BY SCOTT HERSH

With the massive amounts of content available at just a click of a button, neither the search engines nor internet surfers will even bat their eye at a blog post unless the title accomplishes its three-fold mission. The three-fold mission of the title is to rank in the search engines, get noticed by readers, and have the readers understand enough about what the post is about to convince them to read it. Likewise, accomplishing the three desired results from the post title requires a three-pronged attack.

Let’s say that you just wrote a blog post which teaches the reader about learning to knit. By applying the following three-pronged approach, we will transform the main subject of the article into a tantalizing title.

SEO Keywords- In order for the search engines to rank your article well requires using the keywords, that people are searching for, in the title of the post. Although keyword research is a skill, in and of itself, you can learn some effective basics pretty easily.

First, using Google’s keyword research tool, “Keyword Tool External,” search for terms that people are looking for that relate to the subject of your post. For examples sake let’s say that you have chosen to include in your title the words “learn to knit.”

Catch the Reader's Eye- The next step is to spice up the SEO optimized keywords with something a little more catchy. In our example, let’s add the words, “Do it for yourself” to the SEO keywords, “Learn to Knit.” Now we have, “Do it for Yourself- Learn to Knit.”

Tell them What is Special about the Post- Once you have caught the reader’s attention it’s time to convince them that your post has something special to offer. One of the things that is special about our “learn to knit” example post, is that it is clear and concise, which makes it a quick way to learn to knit. Let’s emphasize these good qualities by adding on the words “In Ten Minutes or Less” to show the reader that they can benefit from reading our post within a short period of time.

The final title has all elements required for a good blog, and it comes out like this, “Do it for Yourself- Learn to Knit In 10 minutes or Less.” One final rule to uphold is to keep post titles under 70 characters (including spaces), our title is only 55 characters, so that will do just fine.
There you have it- an effective method of combining the needs of the search engines with the needs of the reader, in order to construct awesome blog post titles.

Author Bio:
Scott Hersh is a business blogger for BCAblog.com the official blog of BCA: leaders in merchant cash advances.

Thoughts?

9 comments:

  1. Great post! True to Pen and Prosper's style, bullet points are always a hit with me!!!

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    1. Hey Rebecca,

      Thanks so much. You're a hit with me as well. :)

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    2. ...And a special thanks to Scott for sharing his
      know-how here.

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  2. You amaze me. I always find what I am looking for here. Thanks.

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    1. ...And I always find your kind words inspiring. Thanks for your time and feedback.

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  3. Thanks for the tips! Titles stump me sometimes, so this will come in handy!

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    1. Soctt and I are glad this was helpful. Go gettem! :-)

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  4. Thanks Scott,

    It definitely is a good idea to take SEO into account with writing blog post titles, Also putting more attention to thinking about catching the attention and telling readers what's special about a post are important things to consider.

    I do think that I need to give writing blogpost titles
    some more attention, thanks for the reminder.

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    Replies
    1. Jennifer Brown BanksFebruary 6, 2012 at 12:50 PM

      HP Van Duuren,

      Glad you found this post as a reminder of things you'd like to address in your Blogging efforts. I'm sure you'll be a big hit. :-)

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