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Online Writing – Is This The Perfect Title?

With online writing your title has to accomplish several things. It has to make it possible for the reader to find the article. It has to tell the reader what the article is about. It has to entice the reader to read the article. Finally, it  has to be acceptable for submission to article directories. How do you accomplish all this in one title?

Sometimes you can’t. Still, you try to include as many elements of a good title as you can. The “best” or “perfect” title will be a different combination of factors for each unique article. Let’s look at what makes the title of this article work.

Online Writing Is About Keywords

They won’t read your article if they can’t find it. How do they find it? Most often now, readers use search engines. If you don’t have the keywords they are searching for in the title, it is less likely it will show up in their search results. In this case, there is good traffic for the keyword “online writing.” That is why it is in the title and will be repeated in this article a few times as well.

Don’t Fool The Reader

You can get cute with article titles, but if you don’t also let the reader know what the article is about in the title or description, you’ll have problems. A searcher may just pass on your article because he doesn’t know what it is about. He may click-through to read the article, then get annoyed when he finds that he was mislead. He won’t be likely to click over to your website then, will he? This article, by the way, is clearly about online writing.

Titles That Grab Attention

Questions involve the reader, and make it more likely they will go beyond the title to the article. They want the answer, of course. That’s why I use a question for this article. The fact that you are reading this article hopefully shows that this was a good strategy. There is more than one way to grab someone’s attention though. Other good titles include words like “How To,” “Top Ten,” and “Easy Ways To,” as well as “You,” “Your,” “Free,” “New,” and “Best.”

Formatting Issues

Titles for online article writing need to be acceptable to the owners of the directories, websites, and newsletters where you hope your article will be published. Good keyword optimization helps – you’re not the only one hoping to get traffic from that article. They also need to be a reasonable length, so they don’t look awkward on a page, or take too much room in a newsletter. Three to seven words is ideal although more words are okay if they are shorter, and perhaps fewer is better if they are longer.

Finally, you should always deliver on the promise of the title. You want the reader to not only read the article, but to feel like they got what they were looking for, and so can trust you. After all, the whole point of online writing is to get that reader to read right through the article to the resource box, where they can click-through to your website.

Tags: article title, Articles, online writing, titles

The Title That Hooked The Most Readers

Online article titles have to do more than those in the print world. In a print magazine, you just need to catch the attention of the reader. The title doesn’t really even have to tell the reader what the article is about, since the magazine it is in will be on a specific subject area. Readers know that if it is in a fishing magazine it about a fishing-related topic.

In an online article, on the other hand, the title has to tell the potential reader what the article is about. He may see nothing but the title in the search engine results, and if he doesn’t know what it’s about, he’s likely to just click on the next link. Online article titles have to be found in the search engines as well, meaning they have to have keywords in them that people are looking for. Of course, just like print articles, they should also catch the reader’s attention.

My Best Article Titles

Sometimes you can do all three of these things pretty well in one article. An example is my article titled “Cheap Homes In Nice Towns.” You know what the article is about, it is okay as an attention grabber (not great), and “cheap homes” is a keyword that many people search for each month. At one of the article directories I have submitted it to, it has been read over 17,000 times – more than double the traffic of any of the other hundreds of articles I have there (many have been read only a couple hundred times).

However, in checking the number of times my various articles have been viewed at this directory, I have often been surprised – enough so to remind me that “rules” are only guidelines. For example, two of the most-read articles I have there are “Remove Permanent Marker From Carpet,” and “How To Get Candle Wax Out Of Carpet” (about 6,000 times each).

These are not attention-grabbing titles, but they are also not topics covered well on the internet. Obviously there is something to be said for utilitarian articles with good keywords that are not too competitive. Add easy-to-compete-for keywords to the list of things to try for in an article title.

In the top five for visits are the article titles, “Really Cheap Plane Tickets,” (6,400) and “Cheap International Plane Tickets” (10,050). A promise of a way to save money seems to always be a good bet. My article “Worry – Five Ways To Eliminate It,” has been viewed 3,300 times, but it is fairly new, making it the most views per month by far. I suppose worry is a common enough problem that people need a solution to.

Article titles that promise to help with a problem work, then. So do those that promise to teach the reader something new, and those that are directly targeting the keywords they are searching. What else can make for a good article title? Here are some suggestions:

- Ask a question: “Do You Make This Writing Mistake?”

- Tell them they can do something: “You Can Write A Better Title Today”

- Promise some value: “Ten Ways You Can Make More Money”

- Use the words “how to”: “How To Overcome Writer’s Block”

- Involve them with a story: “You Quit Your Job – Now What?”

Watch the reports (at the article directories and on your web sites) and try to learn from them. Of course those statistics for “views” I mention above only tell me how many times people started to read my articles. Did they finish the articles? Did they then click through to my web sites? Obviously there is more to good online writing, but good article titles are a crucial part of the process.

Tags: article titles, Articles, online writing, titles

Online Articles Should Have Seven Words Or Less In The Title

Online articles are different from print articles in many important respects. They need to be keyword optimized to be found by readers, for example. They need to be shorter, to fit the space requirements and short attention spans of the internet world. They need to not only satisfy the reader, but to get the reader to click through to the web sites they are written to promote.

There are “rules,” then, that you need to follow to maximize the effectiveness of your online articles. Break them, and you reduce the odds of turning your articles into streams of traffic and income. But not always. Here are some instances when breaking the rules is the smart thing to do.

Online Articles – Breaking The Rules

The Rule: 3 to 7 words in the title.

Short titles format better, and are often “punchier.” That is, they grab attention better. The fact that you are reading this article tells us that an eleven-word title can also grab attention. A title should have a decent keyword in it, indicate what the article is about, and be catchy. If it takes more than seven words to do this effectively, break the rule! Shorter words may help if you’re going have ten of them, though.

The Rule: Primary keyword in the title.

This makes it easier for people to find the article in the search engines. When should you break this rule? When you have already targeted the primary keywords for a topic in other articles, and you have more to write. In other words, if you have already written articles using the keywords “skydiving,” and “skydiving safety,” and any other good related keywords, you can go for a purely “catchy” title on the next article.

For example, “My Parachute Didn’t Open” may not contain good keywords, but it will certainly catch the attention of anyone browsing the directories where you have posted the article. This can mean more traffic to your web site, in addition to that which comes from your optimized articles.

The Rule: Keyword in the “anchor text.”

The idea here is to link to your site using keywords you want to optimize the site for. This is generally a good idea, but there are two reasons to break this rule. First, if you don’t have the full URL (starting with http://) of the site there, it is likely that some publishers will screw up your link. An article without a link to your web site won’t help you much. Second, if the keyword is already in the URL, you are all set. For example, 999ideas.com is already optimizing for “ideas” just by making a link of the URL.

The Rule: Short articles.

Short articles (300 to 800 words) are more likely to be published by others. They are also more suited to the short attention spans online. If your article really needs 1300 words to reasonably cover the topic – break the rule! Know that it will be less likely to be published on other sites, but it will be there for readers in the article directories that you submit it to – at least those that allow longer articles.

Another way to approach this problem, is to split the article into two parts. Post the first part in directories, noting that the article continues on your web site (link to that page in the resource box). This will almost guarantee that it won’t be published much, but on the other hand, if it a good article, finishing it is a very compelling reason for readers to click through to your web site.

There are other article-writing rules that can be profitably broken at times. For example, you normally want an article to generate as much traffic as possible for your site, but the nature of that traffic matters too, right? Perhaps getting less traffic – if that traffic is full of buyers – is better. You can see that knowing the reasons for the rules helps you know when to break them. The bottom line when writing online articles? Do what works. If it helps you get more income – break those rules.

Tags: Articles, online articles, online writing

Article Ideas – Six Ways To Find Them

Article ideas can be easy to generate when you first start writing to promote you web site – at least if your site is on a subject you are passionate about. There are things you have been sharing with people for a long time, and now you just start doing that in articles. At some point, though, you’ll find yourself thinking, “What should I write about now?” Here are six ways to answer that question.

1. Use your web site pages. When I first started to write to promote my web sites, I just came up with article ideas as I went along. At some point, though, I realized that I had hundreds of pages on my sites that could be made into articles. This was a way to really crank out the articles fast too. If you use this strategy, be sure to sufficiently rewrite the content, so it will be “unique.” Search engines don’t value “duplicate content” as highly. If you have long pages, you can also use the content of a page for two or more articles.

2. Use your own experiences. Think about any experience that you have had that is related to the theme of your web site. There is undoubtedly a lesson in that experience. Use the story and the lesson as a basis for an article. For example, if you have a site on dogs, you could tell the story of your first dog destroying the furniture, and have that as the lead-in for an article on dog training. This is a great way to come up with article ideas, because stories really “hook” the reader.

3. Pick apart your previous articles for new article ideas. I used to write a lot of “ten ways” articles. These are easy to write, but the information for each of the ten items is often very limited. I found that I can often go back and pick out one of these items and make it into an article all on its own. For example, if you have an article on ways to relieve stress, you might have a three-sentence item on deep breathing. Perhaps this could be made into an article. There is certainly more to be said about deep breathing than can be put into three-sentences.

4. Listen to yourself. You know things that most people don’t know, and hopefully your web site is based on this knowledge. Suppose you have a website on frugal living. On occasion, your friends would probably ask you how to save money on this or that, and you would find yourself explaining something to them. Write about it! This is a great way to come up with ideas for articles that people really want to read. Any time you explain something to someone, and it’s related to your web site theme, you have new article.

5. Ask your visitors. If you have a newsletter, ask your readers what topics they would like to see covered in your pages and articles. If you have a contact form on your web site, you can do the same there. You know there will be demand for a given topic if several visitors ask for it.

6. Use keyword research tools. Using keyword research tools is a great way to generate article ideas. Suppose you have a site on hiking and backpacking. Type in a phrase like “backpacking,” and you get a list of a hundred related terms, from “backpacking food” to “ultralight backpacking.” Not only will these trigger ideas for articles, but you are also sure that there is search traffic for these topics when you get your ideas in this way.

Tags: article ideas, Articles, online writing