Your blog title is arguably the most important part of your post.
It doesn’t matter if the content itself proves the big bang theory or is the greatest cat video ever seen, if the headline isn’t good then no one’s going to click through.
However it seems that marketers either think the headline has to be clickbaity:
'SEO is dead . . .'
Or painfully dull:
'5 tips to write better blog headlines . . .' (the irony)
But there is a middle ground and it’s a middle ground that you can have a lot of fun with. So here’s a few ways that you can increase click through rates without cheating your audience or sending them to sleep.
Interesting Words are the New Power Words
We’re often told to use powerful emotive words when writing blog titles.
However the fact that so many people are using these sorts of words means that they’re not very emotive at all. In fact we’ve probably become desensitised to them.
So what can replace power words?
How about you try interesting words.
I’m not talking about unnecessarily flowery vocabulary that people aren’t going to understand.
I’m talking about words that your audience aren't used to seeing in the marketing space.
A perfect example would be this blog post by Jason Quey.
'Broccoli + Salmon = Blog Growth.'
This isn’t clickbait and it’s certainly not boring. You know the blog is going to be about blog growth, but hang on, broccoli and salmon? Let me take a closer look at this.
It also uses symbols, which isn't common in headlines. So next time you’re writing a headline, think about words that the eyes of your audience won't be used to registering.
Brackets Are Your Friend
Another extremely effective tactic when writing blog headlines is the use of brackets.
Brackets are versatile little things that can be used for:
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Extra info
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Humour
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Clarifying something
I like to see them as a little room to breathe away from the longtail keyword you may be trying to rank for.
Some good examples:
'Why I love Jargon and you should too (If you want to make money)'
'How to Go Viral (and not regret it)'
Even just the fact that there are brackets there at all will help your title to stand out from the crowd.
Get Direct
Why not just direct your headline right at your buyer persona? Spell it out for them plain to see.
Don’t just tell them what it’s about, tell them it’s for them too. This will increase the likelihood of your content getting read by the right people.
Especially when promoting your content, if you can get something under their noses that addresses their job role directly they may feel far more inclined to take notice.
'A Crash Course on Team Collaboration for CMO’s'
'The Saas Bloggers Blueprint for Better Domain Knowledge'
Not only will these sorts of headlines make your target audience more likely to click through, but it helps you to write more specific content. If the headline is staring you in the face you know you're going to have to make it very relevant to your buyer persona or they're going to be let down.
So these are just a few ideas for you to mix up your headlines, what you’ll notice is that all of them share the theme of attention. Imagine your blog title on page 1 of Google amogst all the other titles with similar words, why are they going pick yours? . . .