If you write regular blogs on your website as part of your digital marketing strategy, you may find yourself stuck when it comes to writing blog titles. You may have even noticed a lack of users visiting your content. This can be very frustrating if you’re actually creating and sharing great content and nobody is reading it.
If you’ve written great content, supported it with a big social media marketing campaign and shared it in your latest email newsletter, what is it that is preventing users from clicking through to your website? It’s most likely your blog title. People are five times more likely to read a headline than the actual blog, so you should be equally putting five times the effort into your headline.
Keep reading for our tips on writing the best possible headlines to help improve your click through rate and boost your engagement.
1. Keep it short & sweet
If you’re scrolling through your social media news feed, the last thing you want to stumble across is an article with an excessively long title. Chances are, you won’t read the whole blog title, let alone the actual article. You might not even notice how often you skim over content on social media either. Next time you’re there, make note of the content that catches your attention. Majority of them will have a title with less than 50 characters.
This is the same for your users. Keeping your title to-the-point, quickly sums up what the blog is about, and catches their attention.
2. Create a sense of urgency
It goes without saying you don’t want your users to read your blog later, you want them to read it now. To do this, you have to promote a sense of urgency within your title. There are many simple words you can use to achieve this, which all work within different contexts.
For example you will see the word “now” in many headlines, used in order to achieve this. “How To Improve Your Conversion Rate Right Now” is much more engaging than simply, “How To Improve Your Conversion Rate”.
Some other words that you might see that achieve this sense of urgency include “next”, “first”, “stop”, and “start”.
3. Include numbers and lists
This is one of the most commonly used techniques to improve click through rate on content. Buzzfeed, one of the largest content sharing platforms, popularised this technique to great effect. For a while, it was impossible to search the internet without coming across list-based articles with numbered titles. Our example above would become “10 Ways To Improve Your Conversion Rate” if using this technique.
This technique gives the user an idea of the length of the content, and how much detail it will go into. Also, list-based articles are much more easily digestible in terms of readability, and causes people to click through more often.
It’s worth noting, another company may have released a similar piece of content with more points, so this is something you need to consider when writing these types of blog titles.
4. Leave out the nonsense
We mentioned that you don’t want a headline that’s too long, and this point sits hand-in-hand with that. In order to keep your titles down to a bare minimum, try and avoid anything that doesn’t add to the subject. Get straight to the point, and let your users know what the blog is about.
For example, “We Look At A Variety Of Different Marketing Campaigns To Show How You Can Improve Your Conversion Rate” is far too long winded. Your users don’t need to know about the contents of the article, they only need to know the overall subject.
5. Share the benefits
You want to make it perfectly clear within the blog title what benefit will your reader get from reading your blog. In our examples above, there is a clear benefit to the blogs. The headlines outline that by reading the blog, you will gain a better understanding of how to improve your conversion rate, which means more money for you.
You can also tell from the headline in this particular blog, that you will be able to learn how to write better headlines. There’s a clear benefit there.
6. Consider using a well-known phrase
One of the best ways to increase engagement from users is to promote a sense of familiarity with them. This can be easily achieved by using one of many familiar phrases with which people can identify. Using our examples above, this would become something like “Ways To Improve Your Conversion Rate That Are Better Than Sliced Bread”.
Well-known phrases and catchphrases are already ingrained in the minds of your readers, so they’re already familiar with part of your headline. As they can relate to part of your title on a subconscious level, they’re more likely to click through and read the whole article.
7. Don’t be vague
This probably sounds very similar to our ‘no nonsense’ approach highlighted above, but we’re actually talking about particular words you should avoid here. Steer clear of any ‘vague’ words that could cast doubt on what your blog is truly about.
For example, the title of this blog could have been named “Ways To Start Writing Better Blog Titles”, which is very vague. By adding the word “tips” instead of “ways”, we provide more information on what the blog will be about.
8. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes
Whenever you’re writing a blog title, take a step back and properly look at it. Ask yourself is this something I would read myself, and is it something that would grab my attention amongst the sea of articles being shared on social media?
As with the content of your blog, the title should be designed specifically with the reader in mind. It’s no good creating a headline that is designed to sell your product or service, if nobody is going to click on it. Again, make sure it highlights the benefit for them, and makes your blog seem like something that is aimed directly at them.
Another great way to put yourself in the reader’s shoes, is to use words such as “you” to speak directly to the audience.
Need some more help with your blog titles?
We hope our tips have helped you generate some top-quality blog title ideas, but if you find you need help generating headlines for your content, get in touch with our specialist copywriters today. Our experts can create a plethora of blog titles for you, as well as write the content on your behalf. Get in touch today and find out more about how we can help with your content marketing strategy.