It is unfortunate that there are many writers that churn out several quality articles that never attain its greatest traffic potential.
Examining the articles that have enjoyed huge amounts of traffic in terms of monthly page views makes one thing clear which is even though two articles may be similar, there is something that is always different – the title – and this is what determines whether the article will achieve its potential.
You have often heard that traditional copywriting is just like the usual offline book store. You were told that just as it is offline, your headline will determine the success of your book or article as much as 95%. This statistic is based on how much sales the book generates. You must however realise that article writing in the internet community is quite different from the way things are run offline. This is because there is a different approach through which your articles get to be seen by your potential customers.
MYTH: Your article will be read when people browse through a website and find your article just like it is when someone visits a bookstore and finds a book that catches his interest.
TRUTH: The above is wrong. The principles online are quite different. People will find your article when they browse the internet by using search engines. They input some specific keywords to look for articles related to what they seek. The search engine will present articles and different information that contains what they are searching for.
YOUR AIM: This is to make sure that your article ranks high in the results that search engines deliver when keywords related to your article are used in these search engines.
The question is how can you achieve this aim?
The first step towards achieving this goal is to accept this truth about creating selling TITLES and building traffic – The first three to five words of your TITLE goes a long way in determining the amount of traffic your article is capable of generating. You can only achieve success when you create titles that are keyword-rich and contain the search terms most commonly used to find the information you give.
How do you figure the right keywords to use in your article?
There are several keyword research tools available online; some are free while others cost some money. There is a well-known keyword research tool that you can find on overture.com and this shows you the most search terms from the directory of Yahoo search engines. Alternatively, you can also check what Google is thinking by using Google’s beta keyword tool known as “Google Suggest” which is available at http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&complete=1.
Examples of good and poor titles
In order for you to fully grasp how to create a selling title, it is important that you consider some examples so you can know the difference between a good and a poor article title.
Poor Title: “10 Important Ways You Can Own a London Property”
Great Title: London Property Ownership – 10 Strategies to Help You Acquire a Private Property in London.
Let’s analyse the examples
The second title is great because it does not waste the 3 leading words in the title with words like “10 Important Ways”. It goes straight to use the words that internet users will most likely use to search for the information in your article.
Secondly, you will see that the word “private” was added in the second example. This is because many people looking to find the information on properties in London will often type “private property”. This is a more specific keyword.
Two Important Points to Note:
- Avoid using characters such as asterisks, quotes or tildes in your title because you will make it difficult for search engines to decipher your title making it unlikely for your article to rank high.
- Avoid spamming search engines by using keyword-rich titles that are unrelated to your article and has nothing to do with your content. Search engines already have a technique through which they filter out such articles.
In conclusion, in order to get the best of any strategy in writing articles, you must first learn how to do an effective keyword research so that your titles can be keyword-rich. This will make sure that you get an incredible amount of traffic to your articles because search engines are in love with keyword-rich titles.
