Several of you have asked to hear some tips on article marketing, so I’m going to begin to offer weekly tips here.

This week’s tip is how to title your article.

I’m not referring to your HTML title tag, though I generally use the same title for my article that I use in the HTML title tag.

When you think about a title, it’s the first thing your readers see on your page. Does the title captivate them? Does it make them want to read the article?

If the readers were to see the title in search results, would they click on it? Is it self explanatory as to what the article is about?

We’re not talking about simple Web pages any more. We’re in a different realm altogether. We want people to read our articles and learn from our knowledge.

Let me give you some possible title tags, and you can decide which are good and which need improvement. I’ll give you my comments later in this post.

Bill Says . . .

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Syndicate Your Articles

PPC Marketing

The Pros and Cons of Social Network Marketing

Ideas

(end of titles)

What do you think? Which would you be interested in reading if you saw those in the search results?

Let me give you my thoughts.

Bill Says . . . (Who is Bill? Why should we care what he says? If we’re on MSN’s site and this is Bill Gates, we might care. Other than that, forget it. There is no keyword phrase in the title, and it’s certainly not captivating. A title is not the place for an ego. Plus, do you think you’d see this title at the top of the rankings for a keyword phrase? Nope.)

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Syndicate Your Articles (People love to read “top ten” articles; “how to” articles; etc. If you can write an article that divides the topic into bite-sized chunks, readers love it. This title contains a keyword phrase–syndicate your articles. It stands a good chance at getting good rankings, inbound links, etc. And, of course, you’ll want to syndicate it!)

PPC Marketing (Too vague. I would recommend more focus. The PPC arena is huge, so why not go down one path for this article and write a series. It would be much more effective, and it would brand you as someone who knows a lot about the PPC industry.)

The Pros and Cons of Social Network Marketing (Good title. Readers love articles that offer pros and cons. After the opening paragraph, which summarizes what this article is about, you’ll want to explain what social network marketing is. Don’t assume your readers know. You might also want to include a subtitle that offers a little more information.)

Ideas (Do I even need to explain? This one is way too vague. However, look at sample search results. You’ll see one word, extremely vague titles all the time. Are they captivating? No, not as a general rule.)

(end of my comments on titles)

Additional tips:

* Use muscle words in your title–words to make your audience want to continue reading.

* Use your keyword phrase in your title. The title will be a heading tag at the top of the page, and I always use the title as the HTML title of the page.

* Write down several titles and don’t choose one for at a least a day. Begin crossing off ones that don’t work. Change up the words a little. Add new titles. Add subtitles, such as:

An Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker
. . . that’s actually easier too!

* The goal of your article should be included in the article’s title. If your goal is to dispel a myth about the SEO industry, your title should state that clearly. If your goal is to teach your readers how to repair a torn leather jacket in five easy steps, the title should reflect the same. Creativity comes in when you make the title captivating and designed to make your potential readers want to click on your link.

* Try to stay away from overused words in your title.

Example:

Think Outside of the Box in your SEO Efforts

Yawn. Think outside of the box is so cliched. Good writers stay away from cliches whenever possible. Aside from the cliche, the title isn’t very focused. What SEO efforts? However, I would still probably read the article. I like “thinking beyond red roses” to see what the writer has to say on a topic of interest to me. Is the title using good keywords? I would guess not, but I would have to check with Wordtracker to see whether SEO efforts is a good keyword phrase or not. 

* Write articles that teach something, help the reader in some way, or offer good, solid information. Ask yourself, will my readers really want to know this information? Is it important to my readers?

* Keep the length of your titles relative short–8 to 9 words for the first line. This isn’t set in stone, but anything much longer won’t get read and could be perceived as convoluted.

Begin looking more closely at the title of articles you read. I’m a firm believer in researching and studying to learn more about whatever topic interests you.

I hope this helps. If you have any title ideas to add here, I’d love to hear them.

Robin