When writing for the web, an article's title has to do a lot of things. It needs to make it easier for the reader to find the article. It needs to explain what the article is about. It has to make the reader want to read on. It needs to be good enough to put in article directories. How do you fit all of this into a single title?
You can't always. Still, you try to include as many good title elements as possible. The "best" or "perfect" title for each article will be made up of a different mix of things. Let's take a look at what makes this article's title work.
Keywords are an important part of online writing.
If they can't find it, they won't read it. Where do they look? Search engines are what readers use most often these days. If the keywords they're looking for aren't in the title, it's less likely to show up in their search results. In this case, the keyword "online writing" gets a lot of hits. That's why it's in the title and will come up a few times in the article.
Don't try to trick the reader.
You can be creative with article titles, but if the title or description doesn't tell the reader what the article is about, you'll have problems. If a searcher doesn't know what your article is about, he might not read it. He might click on the link to read the article and then get mad when he realises he was tricked. He probably won't click on your website then, right? By the way, it's clear that this article is about writing online.
"Titles That Get People's Attention"
Questions get the reader interested and make it more likely that they will read more than just the title. Of course, they want to know the answer. So, I've written this article as a question. If you are reading this article, it's a good sign that this plan worked. Still, there are many ways to get someone's attention. Words like "How to," "Top Ten," and "Easy Ways to" are also good title words, as are "You," "Your," "Free," "New," and "Best."
Problems with Formatting
When you write online articles, the titles you choose need to be okay with the owners of the directories, websites, and newsletters where you want your article to be published. Good keyword optimization helps, because you're not the only one hoping that article will bring in traffic. They should also be about the right length so they don't look weird on a page or take up too much space in a newsletter. Ideal is three to seven words, but more is fine if they are short and less might be better if they are long.
Last, you should always do what the title says you'll do. You want the reader to not only read the article, but also feel like they got what they were looking for and can trust you because of it. After all, the whole point of writing online is to get people to read all the way to the end of the article and click on the link to your website in the resource box.
