The title of a blog post, similarly, can make or break the popularity of the blog itself. Imagine if you’re in line at the movies and you see two different films playing, “Flight 457″ and “Snakes on a Plane”. Samuel L. Jackson explains in interviews that he lobbied against that alternate, dull title simply because it just wasn’t very good from a marketing perspective. “Snakes on a Plane” is silly, but immediately descriptive, powerful, catchy and it proved to be a real ticket-seller.
Your title is how you make your first impression. You want it to be capable of jumping right out at the reader from a list of blog posts. Here are a few key ingredients to a great title for your next blog post.
It’s Incendiary
If a blog post is controversial, you can bet that people from both sides of the fence are going to click on it. It’s a bit of a cheap gimmick, but as long as the tone of the actual post is moderate and reasonable, you can get away with an incendiary, controversial title without being called out as a crazy extremist. This is possible even when it comes to, say, computer products. A title like “Are Macs Garbage?” is going to get more clicks than “Macs Are Useful But They Have Some Flaws”.
It’s Catchy
The shorter the better. Simple as that. “Catchy” is all about strong words and short sentences. Think about some of your favorite pop songs. “Billie Jean is not my lover” is catchy, even nonsense words like “Inna Gada Vida” can be catchy if they’re short and memorable. Keep it short, sweet and powerful.
It’s Immediately Descriptive
Just like “Snakes on a Plane”, you want people to know what this blog post is about before they click on it, or else how are they going to know that they actually want to click on it? Marketing is all about letting people know that you have what they’re looking for. Descriptive keyword happy titles work wonders.