A Publisher's Rant - Why I Hate Your Article Headlines
I'm a publisher for numerous sites. I HATE many of your
articles. Here's why I hate your headline and what you can do
about it.
The Headline
There is a school of thought out there that your headline should
be designed to captivate readers. In the real world, this is
probably true. When I am looking for articles, it is not.
I want keywords front and center in an article headline. This
may come as a shock, but I am using your articles as part of a
search engine optimization effort on sites. With seo, the
keywords always come first. ALWAYS!
Consider the following examples:
1. California Real Estate - The Secret to Making a Bundle
2. The Secret to Making a Bundle in California Real Estate
The first headline is by far the best. The keywords are front
and center. I can easily turn this headline into a meta title
for site page. More importantly, this tells me that you may be a
writer that understands what I want. I am going to click through
to your article and read it. If the rest of the article is done
in the correct format, I am going to publish this article on my
site AND I am going to add you name to my worthy authors list.
When I need new articles, I will go out of my way to see if you
have published anything new.
The second headline is a disaster. The keywords are at the end
of the headline, which is terrible for search engine
optimization purposes. This is a waste of my time and tells me
to avoid your articles. If I can't find enough articles with the
proper headline, I may come back and read yours. Then again, I
may not.
Captivating Headlines
Now you may be thinking you need a captivating headline because
you want to capture as many readers as possible. You DO NOT.
I've already done the job for you. My sites already have
traffic. I am delivering the readers to your article. They will
read it if it is on the site. Of course, you'll have to put the
keywords first to get my attention.
Writing a headline is a fairly simple process. So do it!