A Blog By Any Other Name – Not as Sweet for Search: Part Two

With any business blog, I explained the other day, there’s no getting away from it – the title is going to be the first thing readers (and search engines, for that matter) are going to encounter.

To illustrate a couple of important points about elements Indianapolis blog writers ought to include in the titles of business blog posts, I chose three headlines from the August 4th issue of the Indianapolis Star, and on Monday, discussed the first of those. Here’s the second of the series:

“At the Airport, What Once Was Lost Now is Found”
(The article describes the vast and random collection of items left at the airport by passengers.)

An engaging title – no?  I know it aroused my curiosity – just what was lost and now found? I wondered.

For a blog, however, the title could be better.  In a corporate blogging training session, I might advise content writers to ask themselves what words a reader might type into the search bar that would lead them to this article about lost items left at the Indianapolis airport.

“The Lost and Found Department at the Indianapolis Airport” – that title would be more informative, to be sure (as a reader, I’d know whether I’d come to the right place to get the information I needed), but somewhat prosaic (read booo-ring). How about this one: “At Indianapolis Airport, Between Arrivals and Departures, There’s Lost and Found.”
(I invite Say It For You readers to submit their own versions of this title.)

We business bloggers love to write, but we sometimes forget an important fact: online searchers don’t (at least not generally) like to read. Instead, they scan to be sure your blog content a) answers their question and b) shows them how to satisfy their need or solve their problem.

Indianapolis freelance blog content writers must remember, as well, that the search engines must make that match between the inquiry and the blog content. The title is the “Aha!”, verifying that match.