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Sunday, October 4, 2009

How to Write Great Article Titles for Web Writing

Writing an excellent title for your article adds immense value to your article and it also attracts readers. A good article title can mean the difference between your article being read and not being read.

First and foremost, your article title needs to tell your readers exactly what your article is about. Save the cutesy stuff for your subtitle. Your title is your article's label. It must tell readers exactly what to expect to read in your article. If your article is discussing the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, your title must state this.

You need to get your keywords in your title, preferably as close to the front as possible.

Keep your title short and focused. Three to six words is ideal. You can add a few more, but more than ten most likely means that your title isn't focused well enough. Google only displays the first 8-10 words of your title.

Are the keywords in your title what a typical internet user would search for? Think about how you would search for something. If you were seeking to find what the symptoms of multiple sclerosis were you would search "multiple sclerosis symptoms" or "symptoms of multiple sclerosis". You wouldn't search for "muliple sclerosis: what are the signs and symptoms" or something similar.

Put business, product or company names at the end of the title. For example, you would title your article on problems with Skype "Problems and Issues with Skype" and not "Skype: Problems and Issues".

To test your proposed article titles I suggest checking out the major search engines for quantity, quality and relevance before committing to a title. This is what I do and it hasn't failed me yet. If you see several articles with the same exact title, you should definitely pick a new one. If the title you choose pulls up little to no relevant search results there is a good chance no one is searching for it.

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