Aah…See, I managed to pull you in purely on the basis of the title of this document. The topic that we are discussing here is ‘the importance of good titles in drawing readers to your article/blog post’. And while this is a great example to emphasize the importance of good titles, this technique should itself never be employed while writing actual articles/blogs. Your Blog post title should always be connected to the content within the article and this article has little or no relevance whatsoever to Britney Spears, which I presume is the keyword that drew you here. So, learn what you can from it but never use it.

Coming back to the importance of good titles, let’s pick up an example from a newspaper advert. What prompts you to go through an advertisement or actually read its content? It is either the title in bold letters or an absolutely stunning image that captivates you instantly. The title of your blog post or article is just like that. It is an advertisement for the rest of your article. The reader or visitor is not interested nor does he/she have the time or patience to read through your entire article. But if the title is interesting enough, then who knows. You might have found yourself one more loyal reader and the more the better.

So what defines a good title?

Now that, is a million dollar question that has a few too many answers at the moment.Dave Taylor has written some great tips about this when I was still an infant content writer (about two years back). You can read it here.

A good title can be defined as something that is captivating, can initiate action (click or read through), describes your blog/article, is short and sweet, is search engine friendly, is an ambassador for your blog etc etc.

See, there is a lot to do in the 5 to 8 words that make up your title. Now let’s look at some of those things with that magnifying glass.

•1) Captivating: Captivating means something that can grab the attention of the reader almost immediately. And hey, the captivating element better be in the first four words because readers usually scan through titles too. So, the first four words of your title have to be magic. And do not write an essay of a title. There is nothing worse than an enormously long title.

•2) Should Initiate action: The title can initiate one of two different actions from each visitor who reads it. He/she will either click on the title to read the rest of the article or will scan through it and move on to a googol other blogs awaiting his/her attention. Your title has to fall in the first bracket.

•3) Be descriptive: The title should be the best and smallest description of your article or blog. Think about it. If you click on a title like ‘Why Britney spears would love my content’ and then see that there is nothing in there about Britney, and then you would feel deceived. The feeling might just be too miniscule to make a huge difference to the rest of your day, but you might just remember me and my blog for the rest of your life. And you will most certainly avoid linking to me. It’s about building trust and credibility.

•4) Avoid Clichés: How many times have you come across titles that are commoner than mobile phones in the world if not more annoying? They are all over the internet. ‘Click here now’, ‘How cool is this’. Avoid these titles. Not only do they clearly avoid all of the three previously mentioned extremely important points, but they are also sore to the sight.

•5) Think out of the box: If you are a good writer, then all it requires is a little rap on that grey matter and you can churn out damn good titles for your blog. It can be bold, fun or plain outrageous. But as long as it serves the purpose and gets traffic to your blog, you can stick to it.

So, have you managed to convince you to put in a little more thought to the title of your next blog post?