Writing Good Titles - A Simple Template

By Author: Alex Madison
Total Articles: 2
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What is the most importantpiece of real estate in your article or blog post? Is it the introduction where you let your audience know what they are about to get? What about the body of the article where they have their problems solved or the biography box where you put your call to action?

The essential part of your article is your title. Get this wrong and you lose your hard earned readers in 3 seconds flat. Stop for a moment and consider how your audience will deal with the material you have created for them. First, they read your title. If they think it will solve their problems, they will click on the link to read the full article.

Next, they will read the opening paragraph. This might take 30 seconds depending on how fast they read or the length of text. The third test is the body of the article. Is it teaching them what you promised?

In total, there are 3 gates for your reader to pass through before they get to where you want them to be. And that is the conclusion at the end with your links to the money page. If a reader chooses not to pass through any of these gates, then the article ...
... fails to meet that end goal.

For you as the writer, the critical test is the title. This is the first contact you have with your reader. You have just 8 to 10 words to create interest and get that all important click. With this in mind, I am bewildered as a site owner how often people get this wrong. I get several requests to be a guest author on my sites with titles such as -

Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS)? Are You Really Taking Care Of It Or Just Putting A Bandaid On It? Real Natural Solutions! Read This!

Core Value Eating

Muscle building

These are real titles I just pulled from my review list. It does not matter how good the article is, I simply delete without reading it if it has a title like these. The first is too long and wastes valuable real estate with junk words. Putting 'read this' into a title is a quick way to turn off your audience.

The next two titles are not descriptive enough. The writer has only mentioned the general market the article is discussing. What benefit am I going to get by investing my time in reading this article? An article title is not a classic 'who dunnit' where you keep the audience guessing.

If you are really bad at writing (and I think we all agree that we just read three substandard examples), here is a simple template to help you write better openers. It won't write award winning titles for you, but if you go from a poor writer to an average or even good writer, then your results will increase dramatically.

Think about what you are writing about and then answer these short questions -

1. What is your micro niche? Get as detailed as possible.
2. What is reader going to get?
3. What is the benefit to them for reading your article?

Lets apply this simple template to the PMS title we read earlier.

1. What is the micro niche - PMS pain
2. What is the reader going to get - natural solutions
3. What is the benefit to the reader - reduce premenstrual pain

String them together we get -

PMS Pain - 3 Natural Solutions To Reduce Premenstrual Pain

Now you have a starting point, play around with it a little if you want -

PMS Pain - How To Naturally Reduce Premenstrual Pain

PMS Pain - How To Naturally Reduce Premenstrual Pain With Minimal Side Effects

These are good titles. They are not fantastic titles, but this template will give you far better results than trying to pack half of your word count into the heading.
Do you need to get back to basics with your writing? Become a persuasive article writer by following some simple steps. The Persuasive Essay Guide is a resource for all writers wanting to pick up some pointers and lift their game.