I’m a true believer in the idea that knowledge is power. In fact, the more you study and learn something, the better you’ll understand it. Once you’re really into something and have that mindset about it, you’ll want to learn everything there is to know about it. Once you’ve become so versed in it, you’ll become an expert at it and eventually master the art. That’s how I’ve always felt about SEO, and it leads me into what this blog post is about. When thinking of search engine optimization some people only look at the big picture. They only think about writing content, creating backlinks and hopefully seeing better rankings because of it. Hey, that’s how I looked at SEO once as well – almost 15 years ago! If you really want to master the art of SEO then you need to paint things much deeper than with a broad brush. To master SEO means optimizing everything from a ALT tag to the Title of your post or page. In fact, titles play an extremely important role when it comes to search engine optimization. I’ve ran personal tests myself where changing something as small as a title tag could have an immediate on the ranking results for that page. That’s why I also always recommend experimenting. Running different tests can be the difference between hundreds of visitors when we’re talking about several pages. Today however, I want to zone in specifically on title tags and give some advice on how you should be writing them. These four simple title hacks could be implemented into posts on your existing blog and result in more traffic and revenue almost immediately!
1. Numbers – The idea of including a number in your title is great because it will make the post stand out. That’s ideal when it comes to the search engine ranking pages because you need your link to stand out against the other 9 listed in the page of results. Numbers work because of a cognitive bias. Our brains are trained to find things that stand out, and when you’re scanning a page of search results it can be a bit overwhelming to the brain, making the one that stands out get the most clicks!
2. Length – This is probably the most controversial topic when it comes to blog post titles. The biggest issue when it comes to length is, what’s too short and what’s too long? The fact is, your title should be somewhere between 50 and 60 characters in length.
3. Call To Action – When you’re out doing keyword research you probably aren’t going to find the call to action words. Still, they do really help people click! Consider using action words like search, listen, buy, download, watch, learn and access because this will create more excitement for the user. Those words indicate that the user will be able to do something beyond the keyword, and that is sure to make them want to click your link even more!
4. Questions – Questions can be a great tool to use when writing title tags. These would be little things like “Where Do Birds Migrate?” When your keyword might be something like birds migrate.” By asking the user a question, you are creating curiosity which will make them want to click. The curiosity gap is a good thing, use it to your advantage!
