How to Write Blog Titles For SEO: 7 Smart Tips
Wondering how you can write great blog headlines that draw instant attention and improve your SEO? Find out how….
As a business owner, you’re constantly on the lookout for ways to attract new customers to your business, and of course one of the best ways to do that is through your website! You know that it’s important to be found on Google, but you’re not sure how to rank #1. We want to let you in on a little secret – creating blog titles that are both catchy and optimised for search engine optimization (SEO), is a great way to get your website to rank higher in search engines, for free! So if you’re a business owner, blogger or affiliate marketer, it’s not just about writing great content, but also writing SEO-friendly blog titles. In this article, we share 7 tips on how to write thoughtful, creative, and SEO-friendly blog titles that will improve organic traffic to your website and help more potential customers find you.
Make It Compelling, Intriguing and Interesting
Every blog title should contain a few keywords to make it stand out and catch your reader’s attention, and let them know that it’s the content they’ve been searching for. Try to make your title unique, engaging and informative by playing with words, adding alliterations, puns or other word play methods. Additionally, always ensure that your headline is interesting and creates curiosity - entice readers to click through and read!
Top Tip:
Not sure where to begin? Type a couple of keywords that relate to your blog content into Google and see what the top 5 articles are about that topic. Seek inspiration from these (they’re number #1 on Google for a reason!) and try to make your own blog title even more compelling.
Incorporate Your Focus Keyword
One of the most important components of an SEO-friendly blog title is incorporating your focus keyword. When you use your keyword effectively, you can give your post relevance in search engine results and rank higher, which leads to more traffic to your blog. Make sure to include your primary keyword near the beginning of the blog title for best optimisation results.
Start by researching keywords relevant to your topic, then craft your blog title around them. It’s important not to ‘stuff’ your blog titles full of keywords that aren’t needed. Think about what your audience are naturally searching for - what words do they use to describe what they’re looking for? Add in 2-3 of these keywords to your title to help your content get found by the right people.
Let’s take a look at some examples, to show you what we mean by ‘focus keyword’. We’ve highlighted them in the orange boxes below.
Keep it Short and To The Point
If you’re wondering to yourself ‘How long should my blog title be?’, wonder no more. Believe it or not, Google actually wants you to succeed – so there are some secrets about their illusive search ranking algorithm that they let us all know. One of them being the ideal length of your blog title (which applies to page titles too!).
It’s important that your blog post headlines don’t waffle on and on. But it’s equally important that they’re not too short either! The ideal length of a blog post title is between 50-70 characters long. This allows you adequate space for some keywords, and ensures Google and other search engines can display the full length title, without cutting off any of the important words from displaying in search results. Take a look back at the examples above. Do you see how none of them have ‘...’ at the end? That’s because they’re all within this limit.
Don’t want to sit there counting up all your blog post characters every single time? There are plenty of online tools that can help you test what your blog post or page title will look like in the search engine results page (SERP). We personally love this one which allows you to either test what an existing URL will look like, or input your details for a draft blog post you’re working on.
Ask a Question or State a Problem
Asking a question or stating a problem in your blog title is a great way to grab attention and create interest. It might surprise you to know that 8% of Google searches are actually phrased as a question. Couple this with Google’s introduction of the ‘People also ask’ (PAA) questions box back in 2015, and it’s pretty obvious to see that people turn to Google when they want to solve their problems or answer the questions they’re faced with – so when they see it in your title, they’ll likely click on it.
Keep this in mind as you write your titles, and make sure that the reader knows that you can provide them with an answer by clicking on the link. Some ideas of words to include that phrase your content as a question include: what, should, are, is, does, do, which, why, when, can, how, where, will, who… and we’re sure you can likely come up with a few others yourself.
Here are some examples of how the PAA box appears in the same search results we’ve featured above. If you’re needing some ideas for how to include questions in your blog post titles, turn to Google and type in your keywords. Looking at the ‘People also ask’ box can be a great source of inspiration for what your blog topic could cover.
Play the Number’s Game
Another great way to catch people’s attention is by using a number in your blog post title, stopping the scroll and providing a point of difference in a page full of words and search terms. If you’re using a number in your blog post title, make sure the format of your content reflects this. One of Googles ‘rules’ for whether or not your content ranks highly is the time spent on the page, after clicking a result. If someone clicks your title ‘7 reasons why…’ and is presented with a large essay-format blog post, rather than 7 simple, scannable paragraphs of content, they’re more likely to jump back to the search results to find a better article. This tells Google that they did not find your information useful, and can be harmful to your long-term SEO strategy.
Try using blog post titles such as:
‘10 Reasons why…’
‘5 steps to…’
‘8 products to help …’
‘101 ideas for …’
Use Actionable Language
If you want readers to click on your blog post, use a call-to-action in the title. Phrases like “Discover How To” or “Learn The Secrets of” often catch readers’ attention and compel them to take action. Doing this provides a sense of urgency for the reader – as if simply reading the title will leave them better informed and more prepared to tackle their problems. Be sure to create blog content that is both relevant and compelling in order to get results.
Give Your Audience a Sense of Urgency and Achievability with Time-bound Phrases
To get readers to click on your blog post, try using time-bound phrases in your blog post title. This can be something as simple as “5 Tips To Younger-looking Skin in 30 Days” or “How To Improve Your Flexibility in Just 5 Minutes a Day”. Doing this provides a feasible amount of time for the reader to see that what they’re wanting to achieve is accomplishable. It shows that your content will give them an action plan they can follow, and if they take the necessary steps now they will yield the highest results in a short amount of time.
To sum up the greatest takeaways: make your titles interesting, keep it short and to the point, incorporate keywords, ask questions or state a problem for readers to solve, use numbers strategically, create actionable language with a sense of urgency and time-bound phrases. Remember, effective blog titles inherently have one goal: to motivate readers and stir interest. Ultimately this creates more clicks to your articles which can drastically increase your page’s SEO ranking. Don't let yourself miss out on such valuable opportunities – grab our free download below and start boosting your SEO performance thanks to better blog titles! Use these tips and increase your website's visibility - you won't regret it!
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