Blog Post Title
Blog Post Title
The most important sentence of your blog
By Markus Allen, Publisher of Marketing-Ideas.Org
I
f you're like most bloggers, you focus most of your time on creating a great blog post.
I think this is a BIG mistake.
Instead, I suggest investing most of your energy crafting a great blog post title.
A great blog title:
The best blog title doubles as a search engine magnet and new customer magnet at the same time.
Crafting the best title is so important, I invest more than half my blog writing time creating one... and it's just 60 characters max (including spaces).
A blog post title has two sections - left and right
There are two main parts of a blog post title - the first three or four words, then the balance of your blog title.
Search engines heavily weigh the first words used in your blog post title to determine where to place your blog post in their search results. This is known as keyword prominence.
That's why I invest a lot of time searching which three or four words should start my blog post title with.
The remaining words used in my blog post title function as a new customer magnet.
You see, your blog post title gets cloned... word for word as the clickable link in a search engine result:
See how the blog post title shows up in Google using the exact same wording, "Autographed Books - The truth about signed books for sale?
Introducing my fast and easy blog title formula
Here's the simple formula I use to create great blog post titles:
[Three- to four-word popular search phrase] - [mini headline]
The search phrase you choose signals to the search engine crawlers and robots what your blog post is all about (i.e. the theme). And the mini headline baits your search engine referrals to click on your search engine result listing (instead of clicking on your competitor's link).
Coming up with the right keyword phrase to use in your blog title is the easy part. I use Google's free Keyword Tool to find three- to four-word search phrases that get lots of searches and have poor competition.
In the example above, I start my keyword investigation with the phrase, "improve your memory." Google almost instantly returns 161 similar keyword phrases for us to use for inspiration.
Before I dig into the report, I sort the results by choosing the [Phrase] Match Type. And Google offers the addition option of showing the average click cost for each keyword suggestion -- so I choose the [Show Estimated Avg. CPC] in the, "Choose columns to display" section.
It's best to have the keyword phrases sorted by the average cost per click... highest to lowest. We do this by clicking the "Estimated Avg. CPC" column header twice. The first click sorts from low to high... clicking again sorts from high to low.
Once sorted, I inspect each keyword suggestion... looking for three- to four-word matches that command higher-priced clicks.
Why choose high-priced keyword phrases? It's simple, because these high-priced search queries typically attract better quality leads to our blog. Yep, a simple search query can bring us the best customers or the worst looky loos.
For example, when an advertiser is charged an average of $1.00 per click for the phrase, "improve your memory", it better be worth it. That $1.00 per click really ads up quick (especially since Google shows that search query attracts at least 22,200 searches a month).
By the way, if you think $1.00 a click is a lot, that's chump change compared to phrases like mesothelioma (a form of cancer from breathing in asbestos) which costs upwards of $35.00 per click! Again, we can assume these phrases are worth it because most advertisers wouldn't drop $35.00 per click if it wasn't.
Avoid this common mistake
It's tempting to grab a keyword phrase that gets lots of searches and attracts the highest bids. But remember, we're not the only bloggers using this technique. Keyword phrases with high number of searches and high bids attract the eyes of lots of blog competitors. And if 750 other bloggers are all optimizing their blog post for the same exact phrase, you have next to zero chance to show up tops at the search engines.
I find the sweet spot is between 200 to 4,900 searches a month and average bids between 50 cents and less than $10. Any higher amounts tend to attract too many competitors.
How to write great mini headlines
Now that we have the first half of our blog title crafted (the left-hand side), it's time to create the second half (the right-hand side).
Remember, the right-hand side of your blog post title is used to convince a searcher at Google, Yahoo!, Bing (and other search engines) to click on your link that redirects to your blog post. Plus, your blog post title doubles as a mini headline for those already at your blog and need more convincing to read your blog post.
Now, here's the tricky part - your title should just be 60 characters long. You see, some search engines truncate (cut off) anything longer than 60 characters.
I know, I know -- that seems impossibly short. But don't fret, I'm going to give you my secret in just a moment below.
Keeping your blog post title super short (60 characters or less) offers us lots of benefits... especially when your blog visitors spread the word via social media.
For example, when someone "retweets" your blog, all of the details fit within Twitter's 140-character limit.
As we see in the example above, a Twitter posts contains the blog post title, a shortened URL, the acronym "RT" (which stands for retweet) and the source of the retweet (in this example @truthsleuth). There's a lot of information here -- all packed within Twitter's maximum 140-character limit. (Actually in this case, we have 42 characters to spare).
We run into the same issue with Digg.com:
In fact, Digg is the toughest on brevity... just 60 characters for your title (Google by the way is 66 characters).
Introducing my secret list of Power Words
So how do you write a great mini headline in such a tiny amount of space? It's easy when you employ my list of Power Words:
These words are so important, I've memorized them (and even blown them up poster size for display on my office wall). These power words have attracted eyeballs for hundreds... possibly even thousands of years -- generating billions and billions of dollars in sales. In simple speak, these words are very powerful.
Copywriters use these power words to grab their prospect's attention and lead them to the next action (in our case, a click from a search engine result to our blog entry).
Every day, I write mini headlines for my Featured Site of the Day clients. Each day gives me a new product to blog about.
Here are a few examples (with the power words in bold):
See how each headline incorporates at least one power word... and each blog post title is 60 characters (or less)?
Warning about repeating words -- don't do it
It's tempting to repeat words in our blog titles. The "gurus" have told us that duplicating words gets us ranked higher at the search engines. Unfortunately, this is REALLY bad advice -- my testing and tracking show the best performing blog titles only duplicate one word... no more.
Here are a few example blog post titles from my weight loss blog... I've bolded the duplicate words:
See how I repeat just one word in my blog post title?
The big payoff revealed -- higher AdSense earnings
Once you've completed crafting your blog post title, you're going to notice a pretty fast shift in the size of your bank account.
If you've got Google AdSense contextual ads surrounding the content of your blog post (and you should), Google keeps a heavy eye on your blog post title. While the exact algorithm is a well-kept Google secret, most AdSense experts agree Google displays ads mostly based on your blog post title. And good titles attract good advertisers -- boosting the AdSense revenue you're going to make over time.
And there you have it... my comprehensive guide to crafting your own, great blog post title. Don't fret if you're frustrated the first few times creating these titles... I promise that with practice, you're going to write just like the pros in no time.
There's no reason for you to struggle with writing your blog. If you're ready to make money with your blog writing now, you might want to grab these additional corporate blogging tips, techniques and methods.
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