It’s All in the Title in Blogging for Business

For novelists, a lot goes into their title.  It’s how they relate to their work-in-progress, their baby, for months to come, observes WritersDigest.com . We blog content writers, of course, aren’t given months to agonize over the title of any one blog post. Still, titles are crucial in capturing the interest of both search engines and online searchers.

There are two basic categories of blog titles, we’ve found at Say It For You. The first simply conveys what content readers should expect to find in the post or article. That type of title is not “cutesy” or particularly engaging, but can be highly effective in business blogging because it’s short and to the point and uses keyword phrases that match up with what a reader may have typed into the search bar. The second category of arouses readers’ curiosity, but gives only the barest hint of the content to follow.  A compromise I teach is to use a combination of a “Huh?” title to get attention and then an “Oh!” subtitle to make clear what the post is actually going to be about.

Thomas Umstattd advises authors to use the title to describe not the content of the article, but the value readers can expect to find in the content, making a case for why readers ought to even bother reading on.

In “Title Trauma”, Cindy Callaghan of Writer’s Digest offers a few “outside-the-box” avenues writers can explore for creating captivating titles.

1. The Free Dictionary website offers common figurative phrases.

2. Alliteration.  Say you’re writing about a hair salon in Carmel.  Look for descriptive words beginning with C.   “Captivating Curl in Carmel“ might become your title.

3. Use song titles that express the idea you’re writing about.

4. Use word switcheroos: “Come up with a well-known phrase or slogan, and swap in your keyword, Callaghan advises. She used “What happens in London stays in London.”

The best writing and titling assistance of all for novelists, suggests Callaghan, is the kind that comes from a critique group or writing partner. Of course, the ideal situation for freelance blog content writers is where there’s an approval process.  Assuming you’re in the much more common situation of being your own editor, reading over the post in “Preview” mode, all formatted and ready for publishing, increases your chances of finding your own mistakes before anyone else does.

Pay particular attention to those crucial  5-12 words in the title. After all, you want business blog readers to do just that!