Optimize This Page Title - What about Article Titles?
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You can follow the same guidelines for your article titles. Or if you choose you can spice things up a little bit. Michael Gray wrote a very nice article on optimizing Wordpress page titles that talks about creating a page title and a post title at the same time, and explains why you might want to make the two different. He focuses strongly on keywords. Indeed, one of the reasons that you might want to make your article/post title different from your page title is that you can optimize for different keywords.
But there are other reasons you might want to make your article title different. In another article, Gray talks about “title bait.” He also includes several examples. I believe he intended them to work as both page titles and article titles. He wants searchers to see the title and feel almost compelled to click through to the article. Depending on the approach you take to page titles, however, you might prefer to limit these techniques to your article titles.
You can play on titillation to spice up an otherwise-bland topic. For example, when Gray wanted to point out that one prominent blogger was just two clicks away from adult content, what title did he use? “Six Degrees of a Lesbian Porn Scraper.” You have to admit, that gets attention.
You can also be controversial or, if it’s relevant, clearly show your readers that they’re about to encounter an entertaining rant. That’s the approach Gray took when he titled one article “Yahoo: Yeah We Suck and We Don’t Give a Damn!”
And you can always play the list card. Had I structured this article a little differently, I could have called it something like “Ten Ways to Optimize Your Page Titles.” Somehow, we just can’t resist something that offers to sum up a complicated subject with just a few tips. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a few steps. And it doesn’t have to be a website either; there are books based on this idea. I was delighted to see, for example, that Amazon is currently selling a book titled “The 100 Greatest Inventions of All Time.” Why not take advantage of a marketing approach that’s as old as Moses?
For something a little more up-to-date, you can always mix some pop culture references into your title. Famous quotes or concepts work as well. How about “The Silly String Theory of the Universe” for an article on more technical uses for the toy (our military uses it to detect tripwires)? I admit I’m a little rusty at this; you can probably come up with much better ideas. Of course, you’ll have to rise to the challenge of being professional, informative, and humorous all at the same time, as Gray himself notes – but it can be done. Good luck!
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