Writing Titles for Search: SEO Best Practices

Your title is the most important part of your article.

Do not over-optimize it with keywords.

It is certainly important to have at least one keyword in the title, but stacking it for search engines will effectively kill the ‘people’ experience.

Google considers the first word in your title to be the most important and the last word the least important. When you’re crafting your title, try to move your keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible (without damaging the reader experience).

From a ‘people’ perspective, you have to sell them on the article within just a few words. This is not easy to do and many writers will labour over this mini sales-pitch. Try to keep things simple. Don’t make your title sound like your selling something

Describe exactly what the reader is going to learn.

Which of these titles is best (hint: the last one)?

“MS-DOS Games Microsoft Video Games”
Summary: This title is highly optimized for search engines. It may be searchable, but no one will ever click on this article because it doesn’t make sense. Google may give people the chance to read it but after a while it will fall through the ranks into obscurity. Google wants to see an article that’s clicked on, read and shared around. If it’s not even clicked, it’s off to the grave yard for that article.

The keywords will still help a little in the long term, but because the article will not have much Google Juice, it will only give a little boost. The big long term advantage is that the keywords are somewhat ‘long tail’ so even if the article doesn’t do well in search results, those keywords will help the site they’re pointing to.

People Points= 1/10
Google Short Term = 10/10
Google Long Term = 5/10
Grand Total = 16/30 Pass

“Top 10 Video Games of All Time”
Summary: This is a compelling title that people will probably consider clicking on. As a reader, you know you’re getting an interesting topic and you know it’s going to be divided up into nice, easy to read portions. On the people side, it’s a little too broad. However, people generally prefer something a bit more specific, so ‘MS-DOS games’ is probably a better choice than ‘video games’.

‘Video games’ is also a terrible keyword phrase as there’s tons of competition. It likely won’t rank well. This means the article will never get a chance out of the gate to be read (unless you push it hard through social media). It will likely remain relegated to obscurity. The keyword ‘video games’ may help a little in the long term for the website it’s attached to, but only if there are tons of other articles like it in a very broad campaign. That’s about it for SEO.

People Points = 7/10
Google Short Term = 3/10
Google Long Term = 2/10
Grand Total = 12/30 Fail!

“The Very Best Video Games of All Time!”
Summary: This title is way too broad and is virtually unsearchable. The keyword ‘video games’ is an incredibly competitive keyword and this article will probably never rank well so it will never be read. The title is also cheesy. There are too many descriptors and not enough content. It gives it a dishonest feel because it builds the article up too much.

People Points = 3/10
Google Short Term = 3/10
Google Long Term = 2/10
Grand Total = 7/30 Fail!

“The 10 Greatest MS-DOS Games of All Time”
Summary: This is written for both people and search engines. It has one keyword, ‘MS-DOS Games’. This keyword does not appear at the beginning of the title as the search engines would like, but it is a part of a title that people would actually click on. Also, the keyword is ‘long tail’ which means it’s not as competitive as, say ‘video games’.

As a reader, you know you’re going to get an article divided into 10 easy parts with only the very best content. It’s very specific content which is great. It’s probably going to give you a sense of nostalgia. Even if you’re not a video game fan, or if you never played games on MS-DOS, your curiosity is peaked.

People Points = 10/10
Google Short Term = 8/10
Google Long Term = 8/10
Grand Total = 26/30 Excellent!

Title: How to Make a Promotional Video

To get an idea of how writers create successful titles, visit www.digg.com and browse through their most popular articles.

Come back next week for more great Search Optimization tips and strategies!