Why do you have to create a catchy title and why the title is so important? Imagine yourself a fisherman. Any
copywriter will tell you that if you want to hook your reader you should think about a good bait. Everything is simple – your title is your bait and your today's supper depends on it. The truth is cruel - there is no set formula for creating a catchy title because if there was then everybody would do it, right? You have to know your audience primarily, and then know what makes a catchy title before you can make one. Here are the ingredients for a catchy title and a few power words you can splice in to give it some oomph.
Happy fishing!
1- Deep researchers do not like catchy
You have to match your title to your target audience. You have to make sure that the people you are trying to attract are going to find your title catchy. People that are doing deep research are going to be put off by a typically catchy title. They are going to want descriptive and accurate titles.
2- Skim researchers want catchy and want numbers
The people that are quickly searching for a bit of trivia or a quick answer to a question are going to love catchy titles. They want a title that tickles their interest and that gives an indication it may answer their question. They do not mind a title that is a little more general and a little less concise.
3- Be descriptive and let people know what to expect
The key to getting more clicks is to be more descriptive. There is a trend at the moment where people feel they have to put numbers in their titles or feel that they have to give a vague reference to a payoff in order to get clicks, but people are sick of them and are usually very unresponsive to them. If you are descriptive, then you may scare away some people, but they are the people that are not interested in your products, services, website, network or you. The people that do click are the ones that are more likely to engage with your content.
4- Stir the imagination without leading people on
Do not be vague, but do allow people to ponder on your title before they click the link to your page. You can say that a woman awoke from her coma after two years, or you can say that a woman awakes from her coma and finally becomes lucid. This stirs the imagination and makes the reader wonder what she was like before she became lucid.
5- Pick a selling point and play it in the title
Your selling point is the main use of your article or post. If you are writing a descriptive that, as you should, then playing on your selling point is a great idea. For example, if your article is a picture post on broken-glass structures, then that is what you would write within the title (to be descriptive), but you can play on your selling point by add something such as, “that you have never seen before.” Adding that selling point is honest and descriptive, whilst also plays on the selling point that your pictures haven’t been seen before.
6- Stay away from enticing but non-descriptive titles
There are hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of these all over the Internet and they are annoying. They say things such as, “
This 53 year old woman has the skin of a 20yr old” or “
Nobody thought this would work,” or “
Even a kid can make money doing this.” It is true that young, gullible, and easy-to-impress people are going to click links with these sorts of titles, but most people will not.
7- Link it to trends
Do not misunderstand this tip. This doesn’t mean hop on the trend people have set up where they have to have odd numbers in their titles, or the trend of vague but enticing titles. It msn hop on the trends that will elevate the impact of your title when people read it. For example, the trailer to Fast & Furious 7 was all over YouTube. In the 5 seconds before the advert may be clicked off, the trailer says, “
I live my life at a quarter of a mile at a time.” People that had similar (albeit funny parodies) lines in their titles did very well around this time. For example, movie reviews said, “I watched this movie a quarter of a yawn per minute.”
8- Make it rhyme if you want people to repeat it
If you want people to quote your title, then make it rhyme. For some reason, people are more willing to remember and repeat article titles that rhyme.
9- Stop listening to trends
The Internet is full of articles saying you should have a number in your title if you want people to visit your website and read your article, but the fact is that people do not care. It is one of those occasions where the market has led the metric. The consumers do not click more titles with numbers in because they like them, they click them before more have sprung up than ever before. Do not listen to trends. Only use them opportunistically whenever you think it will benefit or impress your target audience.
10- Try to excite people more than you try to scare them
Trying to scare people with dramatic lines and scary fact will just bore people. People in the USA hear such things on the news so often that they are sick of fear. They already live in perpetual fear and will therefore not seek it out. People in Canada do not lock their doors, and people on the TV talk about conversations to resolve conflicts. People in the USA hear something terrifying every time they switch on the TV or a streaming device, so they will veer away from scary posts that threaten their lives or their happiness.
11- Don’t use over-used words
There are a lot of overused words--too many to post here. Nevertheless, try your best to avoid some of the most overused words in the article and blogging world. Here are a few examples of words that are overused in article titles.
Principles
Reasons
Facts
Tricks
Ways
Ideas
Lessons
Secrets
12- Don’t be afraid of being creative
The key to being creative and
successful is to measure your results. Be creative by all means, but every time you are, you have to measure the results. Your creativity may open up a whole new paradigm in title creation, or it may start the next trend. The only way you are going to see a genuine benefit from experimenting and being creative is to measure your results and learn from them. Pay close attention to your analytics and measure your click-through rates.
13- Use power words if you want to make an impact
Remember that power words and phrases are only powerful for a limited amount of time and are guided by trends. For example, the term, “
Coursing through my veins” used to be powerful, but is now cliché, pretentious and annoying. The same thing can happen with power words, especially if you overuse them, so pick and choose them carefully. Here is a list of currently popular power words.
Click here to download the list.
About Author
Jessica Millis, or just Jess. She is a writer, freelance editor and even a
memoir ghostwriter ( shh! ), in some way. Also Jessica works at
EssayMama online writing agency as an essay writing consultant. Can be connected through
Twitter and
Google+.
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