My Blog

What a lot of people haven’t realized is that while look and appearance can be very important to making a “readable blog/content,” fixing the quality of your post/article is actually much more important if you want to build a readership. Sure, quality content is great, but in this series I plan to show you how to change a few key things with your post/article as a whole to get a better audience and improve your readership. So what are we starting with? The main part of all posts…The Title.

The Title is one of the biggest eye catchers for a post. It shows people what they are getting into, and can usually make or break an article. The reason I say that is that some people try to get too creative with their posts and throw out something like “beautiful butterflies,” as opposed to something like “How to find butterflies in your back yard.” Both have the idea of butterflies, but one tells you exactly what you are going to get out of the post. So what makes a good title? Well there are a few key factors.

Answering a question
The articles that I tend to read most often provide me with something that basically says “you need my help.” I’m not saying that all post are going to answer every single question that people have, but if you want more people to read you need to insert a “how to…” a “understanding…” or something that shows them they will walk away with a valuable piece of information. Most people are selfish (no offense to anyone, I am the same way) and want to get something for the time that they spend reading what you have to say.

Keeping the Question Precise
Now if you are writing about the planets and you write something like “Understanding the Universe” you aren’t very likely to get someone that will sit down and read the whole thing. However, if you title it “Understanding the Universe: What Happened with Pluto” you are much more likely to get people that what/need to find out about Pluto and will probably end up looking around your site for even more information.

Try NOT to be Creative
Now for someone who is a poetry writer ignore this as you should be a bit creative, but for those who are writing articles creativity is something you really need to stay away from. You will still get readers, and you will still have success (one would hope) but a lot of your writing will go un-notice because people won’t be able to find your work through search engines. IF YOU WANT THE BEST FOR YOUR ARTICLES MAKE SURE YOU LET READERS KNOW ALL THEY NEED TO KNOW IN THE TITLE.

Make sure to sound inviting
I saw a post once that was title Top 10 Reasons Why I Refuse To Read Your Blog. Now this post I actually read and would recommend to others, but in most cases it is better to show friendship with people on your blog/article. This doesn’t go to say that you can’t openly talk about why you hate certain types of blogs, but know that you should have a bit of a fan base before you talk about why people suck.

So how do you go about writing your titles? Do you actually put a lot of work into it, or is it just an afterthought?

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