The Importance of Titles on Your Blog Articles

How important are your blog titles on each of your articles? This question is something we all need to look into as bloggers and I have learned quite a bit over the last couple years about placing well thought out titles. Sometimes I like to equate titles to fishing. If you don’t place that good title on your blog it could be that “Blog Post That Got Away”. Let me clarify…

People who search the internet for interesting articles first scan titles. Think about your own experience while browsing around. First off, you don’t have a lot of time, whether you have only an hour online or there is just a lot of territory you need to cover in the amount of time alloted to you. So you look for titles that grab your attention. You look for titles that are about things you are interested in. So for the average seeker titles are the first hook. Then it is the first paragraph.

So let’s provide 2 examples of the same article with the same content but different titles and first paragraphs.

Example 1:

Dick Cheney Shoots His Hunting Partner While Dove Hunting
Dick Cheney was out dove hunting yesterday when he accidentally peppered his hunting partner with bullets. They rushed him to the hospital where he was treated and is expected to recover… blah blah blah

Example 2:

Oh man… this is bad…
I can’t believe this happened. What a freakin’ moron! Who on earth would do this and consider themselves a hunter. I understand accidents happen but man oh man. What happened was Dick Cheney was out dove hunting and… blah blah blah

Ok, so which scenario above would you most likely click on? If you are in a hurry and you wanted to read something that caught your attention? In my past experience I have found that Example 1 will bring in a lot more readers than Example 2. Why?

The reasoning is simple. You have a split second to get the reader’s attention. You need to provide in the title a phrase or sentence that best describes your article. Yes, it is that simple. That is why most journalists will place a title, write the article, and then go back and edit the title to make sure it tells the reader what it is they are about to read. There is no question in Example 1 what the article is about. Look at Example 2. You may think it lures people into your article but most people will not read on to see what it is that is so bad… People want news and that title is not a news article title. It doesn’t tell people what it is they are about to read. You have to go investigate. With online writing you have a split second. The reader doesn’t want surprises… they want to know what they are going to read, so provide them with the facts.

Secondly, blogs are notorious for opinions. A blog’s survival is the commentary. But a word of caution… put your facts first and then follow up with commentary. People want to get the news first and then read what you have to say about it. If you reverse the order with opinion first and then the news, even though the same content is in the article, you may get different results. In my Example 2 article all the opinion is in the first paragraph… “What a freaking moron!”

Sometimes with a nice touch you can do something like this:

Dick Cheney Shoots His Hunting Partner While Dove Hunting
What a freakin moron! Dick Cheney was out dove hunting yesterday when he accidentally peppered his hunting partner with bullets. They rushed him to the hospital where he was treated and is expected to recover… blah blah blah

Your opinion is 4 words at the beginning to set your readers up for the facts. This helps gear the reader to your own bias of the story. It isn’t extensive and is only 4 words. Readers will glide over it and then hit the cold hard facts. But it is crucial that the facts remain in the title and the first paragraph.

Also, another important reason to get those good titles and first paragraphs are for search engines. They crawl those areas first on your blog. They pick up those key words. Putting “Dick Cheney” and “Dove Hunting” in your title is important when people start searching for his name. People don’t search for “Oh man” and “This is bad”. So do yourself and your readers a favor and work on those titles.

My last word of advice… don’t worry about having too long of a Title. I see people using 1 or 2 words. Take your title and make it a complete sentence. Make sure the reader knows exactly what it is they are going to read. The nature of the Internet is not to lure readers in with suspense, but lure them in with facts.