Content Creation Tips

When Content Titles Go Horribly Wrong

4 Laws for Prospect Pulling Content Titles

Your Content Title has a very important job to fulfill. It serves to grab the attention of your busy prospect and virtually compel them to stop what they are doing and read your content.

In this way your Content Title is much like a newspaper headline whose purpose is to get the attention of the reader and cause them to want to consume your content.

How to Mess It Up

Unfortunately there are many ways in which most content creators create less than attention grabbing titles. Here are a few of the ways to mess it up:

• Titles that make you go ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ — Your goal is to grab the attention of your prospect, not get them to take a nap.
• Why read this? Most titles do not pass the “what’s in it for me” test by leaving out any clear benefits if the reader takes the time to consume your content.
• Where, oh where are the keywords? Not only do some folks not include keywords in the beginning of the title, some include no keywords at all. Huh?
• Too good to be true. Titles that are too hype-y or obvious click bait chase the bright reader away because high quality prospects know you cannot deliver on the promise of your title.

How to Get It Right

• Create a title that you would want to read. If it does not grab you, tweak it until it does. I’m not happy with a title until it makes me think “Man, I want to read that!” Show your title to someone else too. If it does not grab them, tweak your content title until it does grab them. There is work involved here, which is why I think most people craft such weak titles. It’s work that is so worth it, because if you lose your prospect here, you have lost them for good.
• Include compelling benefits. Make the benefits very clear. Spell it out for your prospect in a compelling way. Use numbers for your benefits. “7 Tips to…” “”5 Warning Signs of” “”3 New Ways to” etc. You get the point. Craft your titles so your prospect gets the point of consuming your content.
• Front load your Content Title with keywords. Make sure you have keywords in the first 4 words of your title so the search engines AND your prospect knows what your content is about. Make it very clear.
• Deliver on your title. Make sure your title promises something which you can deliver, and then over-deliver.

And now here are 4 specific Content Title Laws to follow:

The Law of Key Word Placement

Where you place your keywords in your title is crucial and goes against what you would normally assume to be true.

You want to have your key words in the first four words of your title. This is because the search engines, and readers, will notice these words more quickly than key words that show up later in the title.

For example, the title of this article could have been “3 Laws for Writing Prospect-Pulling Titles for Your Content.”

Not a bad title, right.

Wrong.

Since the key word phrase is Content Titles, we have a problem here. While titles does show up as the 7th word, the most important word, content, does not show up until the last word in the title.

At the same time you do not want to create a title that does not flow or makes little sense just to get the key words in front. “Content Title Tips: 3 Laws for Prospect-Pulling Titles” flows easily, makes sense, and leads with key words.

The Law of Strength

Which one sounds stronger:

1. “Here are 2 suggestions you might try that could help you write better titles.”

or

2. “2 Laws for Prospect-Pulling Titles.”

Now I realize that I’ve exaggerated a bit in the first title, but I have seen titles that are close to that wimpy quality.

Strong titles pull in readers. Here’s another example:

“Houston and St. Louis played each other in a baseball game last night”

vs.

“Houston Rockets into the World Series with win over St Louis.”

Which one are you going to read?

The Law of Benefit

This one is crucial. Do you know what radio station most people listen to? It’s called WIIFM, which stands for “What’s In It For Me?”

Your title needs to answer the question in the mind of the reader:

“What’s in it for me?”

This is why your title needs to offer a clear benefit to the reader.

Many of my beginning Content Marketing students would say that in the title of this article there are two benefits listed — “4 Universal Laws” and “prospect-pulling titles.”

There is an important distinction to be made here. “4 Universal Laws” is a feature, and “prospect-pulling titles” is the benefit.

It answers the what’s in it for me question.

The Law of Willie and Toby

This is my favorite:

As the story goes, country music star Toby Keith had always admired country music legend Willie Nelson. Toby Keith had written a song on which he wanted Willie Nelson to sing a part.

They ended up at the same party once in Nashville and Toby got up the nerve to ask Willie if he would sing on the song for his new CD. When he asked him, Nelson sort of politely blew him off with “Send my people a demo tape and we’ll see.”

As he turned to leave, on a hunch Willie Nelson turned and asked Toby Keith for the title of the song.

Toby Keith answered:

“Whiskey for My Men, Beer for My Horses.”

Willie Nelson said: “I’m in.”

“I’m in” in the the content world translates into

“I gotta read that now!”

And, ladies and gentlemen, that’s a prospect pulling title!

Want more content title and content creation tips? Then you’re invited to check out my Content Creation Hub:

Website PS: These articles originally appeared on JeffHerring.com