Lisa Sparks writes:

Hey there, Chris.

I’ve found alliterative headlines work very well for me.

Such as: Craving a Creative Kick? Try These 7 Tricks

Also using the words: Knockout and Turbo-Charge have been getting me more views than usual when used in my titles.

Anything suggesting fast results or positive forward movement seems to catch my target audience’s eye.

Thanks,

Lisa
—

P.S. – Happy MLK Day!

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Dina at Web Content Awareness Day(s) writes:

Hi there…

I just have one question:

WHY?

Dina

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Louie Latour writes:

I stumbled upon this by accident and have seen the same results with my articles. I tried focusing on Keyword Densities of 4-5% on the suggestion of one Internet marketer, but had no noticeable gains; writing naturally with a longer, descriptive title seemed to be much more effective.

Cheers!

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Edward Weiss writes:

I think it really has to do with how competitive the keywords you want are.

You can pretty much get in the top 10 at Google IF you use keywords that a million others aren’t trying to optimize for. This isn’t just my opinion. I’ve seen it work every time I’ve done it.

In fact, my top article (in terms of actual clicks) is one where I used a term that everyone wasn’t very popular. Plus, the title of this article isn’t very long either.

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Michelle Devon writes:

I have found the same to be true on longer titles – not just on ezine but on every site that I use including articles on my own websites… I haven’t done any stats on it, but clearly articles with longer titles are getting more overall page views.

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Jeff Herring - The Article Guy writes:

Hi Chris

I have found with my own articles and with my students that 3 things really make a difference in titles:

1. I still believe it is important to not waste your first four words

2. The longer the better IF you use your keywords again

3. Have your title end with a key word as well.

For example, one of my students has received 723 views for an article that has only been up for 26 days as of this writing –

“Sex and the Senior: 7 Secrets of Sizzling Senior Sex”

not that the word sex had anything to do with it :)

Catch you soon!

Jeff

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Lance Winslow writes:

I totally agree with Lisa on the article titles, They make people look and click too. And I must say I have had excellent success with longer titles, interesting how well that works really. Chris is spot on.

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S Parker writes:

I certainly agree that a longer title is better. A short and poor title can ruin a good article.

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

I’m with Dina.

I wanna know why?

I understand the longer title, increase keywords, and use a key word at front and back of the title. If the keyword just happens to be SEX you’ve got a great catch word there.

But Why a longer title?

Jan

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Lance Winslow writes:

You know shortened titles do help you properly target your reader. That may mean somewhat less over all traffic, but much better click thru rates? Any thoughts on that line of reasoning or logic?

Lance

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Dina and Jan,

By making the article title LONGER, you increase your chances of hooking more fish.

It’s like casting a bigger net instead of a small tiny one.

Jeff,

You do find creative ways to mention “sex” quite a few times throughout the year… not that there is anything wrong with that. ;-)

Lance,

Hmmm interesting idea… and one that would have to be tested.

Technically, a shorter title would be more BROAD in focus rather than more narrow because the additional length of the article title in most cases would eliminate potential readers.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Yes, but the longer titles have a better potential of reaching your exact target and hopefully your reason for writing it in the first place.

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Strephon Williams writes:

Some Word Characteristics of Titles:

-longer vs shorter

-loaded words vs subject specific words (sex is not specific to anything except genital warts, and even here we have other types of warts)

-big words vs little words

-expert specific words or personal address words

-two key contrasting concepts or one directional words

-general concept word followed by specific

-originality of words vs general current concern words

-help and hope words vs scary, be wary words

-directly challenging words vs positive and hope caring words

-fad and trend words vs the perrenial concepts words

Which is only to suggest there are a whole number of contrasting characteristics to how people think and evaluate consciously and unconsciously.

As a writer you can evaluate what types of writing skills you now have doing titles and what you can add.

As a marketer you can do research to see which kinds of any of the above types of titles get effective response.

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