5 Killer Secrets To Writing Magnetic Titles

This is a guest post by Karan Singhal who provides SEO services at Trafficke and today is sharing 5 killer ways for writing title for your posts that will attract more people to read it.

If you want people reading your content, you need to pull them in. And the only way to do this is using your post title. By choosing your words carefully and picking phrases that drive people to click and read more, you’ll be much more successful as a blogger.

All of your hard hours working and writing content can be wasted in a second if you don’t know how to present it to new visitors. A visitor will NEVER read your content unless they’ve been pulled in by the title. If you can’t do this, then the first thing you need to improve on as a blogger is your title writing.

Your post title is the first (and often, only) thing that a visitor sees when he/she is browsing your blog. If you want to turn that visitor into a real dedicated reader, you’re going to need to write a magnetic title. Remember, it’s your only chance to capture someone’s attention, so use it wisely.

If you want people to share and link to your content, you want them to read it. If they don’t read it, they won’t turn into subscribers, ad-clickers, or customers. They’ll just leave your blog. That’s the problem with blogging. It’s just too easy to lose the valuable assets that you worked your “you-know-what” off to get, even with amazingly helpful content.

Why?

The average internet user has the attention span of what? 2 seconds? Within those 2 seconds, (or so) if you want to keep visitors on your website, you need to get them hooked.

It’s very similar to reading a book, for me. I love reading. But when it’s time to start a new book, I just can’t. But if I’m motivated enough to keep reading, I might just get hooked on the actual content present in the book, and not just the title. But that’s an “if”. You don’t want an “if” on your blog. You want to be sure that on first glance, a visitor feels inclined to read more.

OK, enough on why you need to write great titles, let’s get on to how:

<= 5 Tips For Writing Titles That Make A Visitor Want More =>

1. Take Some Time To Think

Before you even think about the wording of your title, you’re going to need to sit down and relax. Think about what you want a visitor to get from reading your article, even before you write it. Also take some time to think about the general structure of your future title. Will it ask a question? Will it answer one? Will it use powerful and clever wording to win over your visitors? These are a few questions to ask yourself before you get into actually writing title.

One problem that most bloggers have is taking time to write their title. They believe that the title is a one-second job. I disagree. The title should be the part of your post where you place the most actual thought – after all, the words in the title are the most important words in your entire content.

Thinking before you start wording let’s you effectively come up with good ideas for your title.

2. Use Powerful, Bold Words

Little differences mean everything on your title. By switching words like “powerful” to more exciting words like “killer”, you are attracting the eyes of even the hardest visitors to pull in.

Here’s a few words that will really make your titles magnetic:

• stellar
• skyrocket
• serious
• secrets
• ultimate
• free

Using words like the ones above makes your post look bolder and more useful to potential subscribers. These powerful words make you want to click through and read more. Think about it. If a post title is exciting, chances are you’ll click through and read more.

Plus words like these help you really express what you mean. It’s much harder to explain what you mean to your readers if you aren’t actually talking to them. By using strong wording, you are really explaining what your post means and what it will provide for readers, effectively pulling in even more traffic to it.

3. Answer A Question

A great way to get your visitors to read on is to answer a question that they may have in the title itself. This may sound like a bad idea, but it isn’t. It shows readers that your article will really help them.

How?

If a question that they have is answered before they even look at an excerpt, you’ve got them hooked, powerful words or not. If your title answers a question, that means your actual post will answer MANY questions, and will therefore be more of a help to anybody who reads it.

4. Be Clever

One of the best content-writing strategies out there is to be clever and stay away from sounding like a dictionary. Doing this in your title helps you attract the attention of people who are looking for more than just answers – most people, especially on the internet.

One little example of being clever is instead of writing – “guest posting is powerful”, write – “a single guest post, written and placed correctly, has the potential to rake in hundreds of subscribers for your blog”. See how I even provided more information for readers? The same principle can and should put into your titles.

Being clever also helps you explain things. One way of being clever in your content is using comparisons. You can easily use comparisons that leave a visitor hanging in your title: For example, a  title using this strategy is “How Your Blog Is Like An Animal“. A reader who comes across a title like that will be confused and most likely will want to read more.

5. Write Your Title After You Write Your Post

This is more of an experimental strategy, but I can tell you from experience that it works. (at least for me, because I’m special :P)

Have you ever given a thought to writing your post body first and coming up with its support later? Doing this helps you write titles that more accurately reflect your content.

If you decide to take the “conventional” approach and come up with a title before you even write a word of real content, you are writing title as one person and finishing up your post as another. (writing is a life-changing experience :-O) This might lead your title to “lie” to your readers about what your content actually delivers, even if it’s accidental.

That’s my two cents on writing titles.

Combined, these “secret” (powerful word right there) strategies will turn an uninterested visitor into a dedicated reader that might be willing to do more, maybe even subscribe.

But remember, don’t overdo your titles: you might just end up looking like you tried too hard. (which of course, you did, but don’t show that weakness to your traffic ;))

Thanks for reading! Remember how easy it is to share content with other people? Why don’t you try out that ability on this post! 🙂

Top 10 Search Terms:

• writing titles