5 Easy Tips for Great Blog Post Headlines

Follow these five easy tips, and you’ll improve your blog post headlines. That will help you improve your Google PageRank. You do know about Google PageRank, or PR for short, don’t you? Do you even know why it’s important?

PageRank, an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results, was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. Among other business uses, PR determines how much a website or blog owner can charge advertisers.

In its simplest definition, one assumes PageRank is high if there are many visitors to the website/blog. So how do you get visitors to your site? By providing worthwhile content with some very important characteristics.

SEO and Keywords

Simply put, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving the visibility of a website/blog/web page in search engine rankings. You do this by organically writing text that web crawlers look for.

The earlier in the content and the higher on the page and the more frequently a website appears in SERP (Search Engine Results Pages), the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.

Keywords, or keyword phrases, are the words people enter into a search engine to find something specific among the millions of pages on the Internet.

Begin At Beginning

So if you're looking to improve your standing in Search Engine results which ultimately results in people finding your site more often, then you write blog posts or website articles using SEO techniques and tag or label those posts with specific words or keywords.

You begin your article or post with the headline, and that's where I'll start.

What Makes A Great Headline

Headlines are very important. Most readers find your blog through the good old RSS feed so you want your headline to immediately attract them so they click to read.

What kind of headlines appeal to readers? Those that follow some tried-and-true formulas. Here are my 5 easy tips for great blog headlines.

1. Headlines with numbers that promise special information.

Example: The title of this blog post has the number 5, an odd number.

Make a chart with 3 even columns: left, middle, right. On the left, put numbers. For some reason, odd numbers seem to work better along with the number 10.

2. Headlines with a "magical" word.

Example: The title of this post includes the magical word, tips.

In the right column, write down specific words that promise to divulge something unique. Some of these words might be: secrets, mistakes, nuisances, revelations, fantasies, tips, habits. Write down as many of these special words as you can think of.

3. Headlines with a modifier of the "magical" word.

Example: The title of this post has the modifier, easy.

In the middle column, write modifiers that increase the interest of your "magical" word. Example: easy ways, awful things, funny outcomes, perilous mistakes, cool tips, logical reasons, etc. Again, write as many as you can think of.

Then start combining a number from the left column with a modifier from the middle and a "magical" word from the right.

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4. Repeat the headline word or words in the first paragraph. That's another SEO technique, but do it naturally, not where it sticks out like a sore thumb.

5. Use keywords in the headline. If you're writing about ebook authors, then that phrase "ebook authors" is a keyword phrase that people plug into search engine to find content about that subject. So make your headline use the keyword phrase, repeat the keyword phrase in the first paragraph and in at least the middle and last paragraphs as well. Make it organic to the piece.

Make a list of your keywords and sprinkle them organically in your text. Never use them over and over in each paragraph. That’s called keyword stuffing and does little but create boring text.

Takeaway Truth

SEO and keyword inclusion are important in getting your content seen, but good headlines are needed to make the viewer click to read. Just remember to make your SEO and keyword usage seamless and organic to the content.