Effectively Using Keywords in Your Blog Titles
Blog titles are crucial to gaining attention on the Web
On my recent post Write Better Blog Headlines: Tonight at 6, there were some great comments. Rudy left a great comment for possible ways to expand on the post so I thought I’d do just that.
Here is Rudy’s comment (here are all comments on the post):
Dayne,
Good stuff and I agree with Albert comment. The sub-topic of this would be how to achieve this goal.
Maybe ask questions or provoke a conversation, for example. Then, another session could be on those “key” words to use in your headlines that draw readers!
Keep the info coming Dayne, I have almost reached saturation!
Rudy
I’d like to run with the Rudy’s suggestion of finding “key” words: both those that attract readers’ attention as well as those that will help your search traffic.
Before I get into keywords, here are a few posts I’ve written on the topic:
Hunting Outfitters and Guides: Get Valuable Traffic to Your Website
How to Start a Blog that will Grow Your Outfitting Business
5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your Small (or Big) Hunting Website
And here is a great post from Adam Singer on a related topic:
Findability, The Long Tail Of Search And Building Deep Interactions
Finding keywords that attract readers’ attention is important, as Rudy points out. There is a lot of noise on the Web and having attractive headlines is vital to gaining readers’ attention and driving them deep into your content.
If you want to see how important headlines are, check out Hunting.Alltop.com and observe all the headlines. Then look for the ones that stand out the most. It’s not easy to stand out when there are so many other great blog post titles.
It’s also important to find keywords that are relevant to the topic of your blog. This will help you slowing build a strong and reliable stream of traffic from search engines.
Let’s take a look at some ideas you can use for both sets of keywords for your own blog or Website.
Attention Grabbing “Key” Words
I have linked previously in the Related posts on the Web to two great posts on Copyblogger.com:
The Cosmo Headline Technique for Blogging Inspiration
The Hidden Key to Cosmo Headlines: Sex and the City?
The concept of the “Cosmo Headline” method is simply that Cosmo headlines are attention-grabbing and impactful. Think of how many times you’ve sat waiting in line at the grocery store. What magazine do your eyes gravitate to the most?
There is a good chance that you’re thinking of Cosmo or a related magazine (Guys, your buddies aren’t watching so it’s Ok to admit to yourself that it’s true – I had a hard time at first admitting it to myself).
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for blog posts or struggling to find a good title for your blog post, try visiting Cosmopolitan.com and scan the headlines for eye-catching material.
So why do these headlines stand out?
The Cosmo headlines are often written in list form, which readers love. The headlines cover topics that really stand out as important to just about every adult human on the planet. The headlines really show the benefit that will be gained if the reader continues reading the entire article or post.
Brian writes: “They’re [Cosmo Headlines] all written by pros who make good money getting people to pick up periodicals and drop them in the grocery basket.”
If you’re looking for great headline and article ideas you might as well learn from the best in the publishing business. Don’t be afraid to use Cosmo headlines to craft your own posts.
Now, if you’re uncomfortable using Cosmo headlines (Hey, not all of us guys want Cosmo on our History), you can use MensHealth.com. The same concept applies and it’s not as awkward. I use Men’s Health for blog post ideas all the time and it seems to not only generate ideas for me to write about, but it also seems to generate the attention grabbing “key” words that Rudy referred to in his comment above.
Let’s check out the Guy Wisdom – List Section on MensHealth.com:
18 Things Grown Men Should Never Have
How easy could it be for a hunting retailer or hunting product manufacturer to turn this eye-catching headline into 18 Things a Hunter Should Never Have? That is an catchy headline that will draw in a lot of eyeballs for your blog if you can write a great list.
10 Things Children Teach Their Fathers
This is interesting because it flips the standard on its head, which is very eye-catching. Would you stop to check out the post 10 Hunting Tips Parents Can Learn From Their Kids?
The 20 All-Time Best Men’s Health Tips
How can you not stop to check out this post? Everybody is looking for the best of the best. If your blog has long-time readers they’d love to look back on the best of the best you have offered. If a new reader happens to glance at this headline they’ll be curious and a likely place to start when exploring a new site is the best you have to offer. Try writing The 20 All-Time Best [Your Hunting Blog Here] Tips. I could use this myself a little more I think. I do have The All-Time Top 10 Posts on Hunting Business Marketing.
I could go on for awhile trying to list title ideas from using the Men’s Health lists, but I’m sure you could do a better job with them.
Take some time and try out this technique for eye-catching “key” words. I think it will help generate some great posts for you and your readers.
Keywords for Traffic
Finding keywords for your blog is important and for some reason also a little tricky.
As you start to accumulate blog content, you’ll start to see a slow gain in search traffic. You’ll see a lot of long-tail keywords (keyword phrases, questions, and some off topic phrases) generating traffic to your blog posts. Hopefully, you’ll also see some traffic from some general terms that really relate to your business.
As time has passed with this blog, I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting more and more traffic from terms and phrases that I target such as “hunting businesses”, “hunting blogs”, and “starting a hunting business”.
I’ve also noticed a lot of traffic from some unrelated terms such as “bon jovi” and “best country songs”. These keywords are some I didn’t intentionally set to target. They likely don’t generate long-term readers.
Some lessons I’ve learned from this include the importance of putting in some thought on what your blog and business are really about and remaining focused on writing blog posts strictly about those topics and related items.
It’s a fine line between writing about the same things all the time and trying to expand your blog post topics. The Bon Jovi post was a lot of fun to write, but I realize it might not have been great for search traffic or for gaining long-term readership.
I think it’s important to test new ideas and try new things for your blog posts. I won’t stop trying to reach readers in new and fun ways so you’ll probably see more Bon Jovi-type articles.
But I’ve also realized the importance of staying true to the focus of this blog Hunting Business Marketing.
For your own blog the basic concept to understand is to recognize what you, your hunting business, and your blog are all about. Think about the keywords, keyword phrases, and questions your readers search for on the Web and try to naturally write blog titles and posts about these topics.
Use tools like Google’s Keyword Tool and Wordtracker Labs Keyword Question Tool to see how much traffic your business-related terms are getting to see if there is enough interest to support your work.
Also continually watch your site or blog’s keyword trends and listen to what your readers are telling you.
Search and keywords aren’t difficult. You just have to focus on what your blog is really about and continually test and try new things to see what benefits your readers.
Keep your readers’ needs first and you’ll become a successful blogger over time.
Related posts on Hunting Business Marketing
10 Ways to Create Stunning Hunting Blog Posts
10 Examples of Remarkable Hunting Blog Posts: Part 8
10 Hunting Website Truths You Can’t Ignore
Related posts on the Web
Your Blog vs. The World: 7 Steps To Winning The War for Attention
Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines
8 Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
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