Blogger’s style guide: Writing a good title

1. Make the title or headline of your post specific – it lets your reader know what to expect BEFORE they click.
2. Don’t promise something you are not going to deliver as this will result in a broken experience and an annoyed reader.
3. Resist the hilarious pun – it most likely won’t make any sense out of context.
4. Include both first and last names if a person is the subject of your post – this is better for SEO (see  previous post on  SEO for writers).
5. Think mobile. Many people now read content on their phone or in an RSS reader, so they may only see the first few words (40-60 characters). Based on that, they will decide whether to click through and read on – or not. The trick is to be plain, include your keyword/s and also be as enticing as possible, which is not that easy. Oh and don’t write a headline that is dependent on an accompanying image/video – these don’t always appear on portable devices.

[FYI: Last year I wrote a Blogger’s Style Guide to help people in the organisations I was working for start writing posts and publishing them on the company blog. Many had never written anything beyond an email before but they did know their subject far better than I, so they just needed a good briefing in style, tone, structure and so on. This is that starter kit for company bloggers, consisting of  10 mini-posts in all.]