The number main goal of any piece of content you produce is to appeal to your readers – the local moms in your community. Not only should the content of your post engage your audience – so should the headline. After all, it’s what draws them to your content in the first place.
However, it’s also important to keep in mind that little thing called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Often times we think to focus on being engaging in your blog title means you have to sacrifice SEO and/or visa versa, but following these simple tips can allow you to accomplish both.
First thing’s first, let’s dig into why a page or post title is important…
What’s the (SEO) purpose of a page title?
The purpose of your SEO title is to make people click on it, visit your website and read your post content. If your title does not immediately tell your readers what your content is about, they will likely move on. Essentially, there are two goals that you want to achieve with a title:
- It must help you rank for a keyword;
- it must make the user want to click through to your content.
Multiple variables go into the Google algorithm that determines how relevant your content is for a specific keyword. If you are ranking well initially, but no one is clicking on your content, then you may see a dip in your organic search results. The opposite is also true, if you aren’t ranking high to start, but people are engaging and clicking on your content, then your rankings will increase over time.
Steps to Write an SEO Optimized Page / Post Title
Step 1: Write the Post
Don’t put the cart before the horse! Writing a relevant headline without first writing the content is jumping the gun. Write the blog post and then you will be in a better vantage point to write a headline that is descriptive, attracts attention and focuses on the appropriate keywords.
Step 2: Pick Competitive Keywords
Primary reason why Step #1 is so important! Reread your content and determine the phrases and keywords that are most prevalent. This would be a great place to start in determining your focus keyword for not only your content as a whole, but specifically your blog post title.
The keywords you pick must be:
- Relevant to your post
- Phrases your audience is likely to search for
- Short and descriptive
Step 3: Keyword Research
Likely the most commonly missed step in the process – do your research! Simply go to google.com and type in the keywords you have identified. Are the results relevant to your content? Are you on the right track?
You can take it a step further and use a tool such as Adwords Keyword Planning Tool or Moz Search Bar. Using one of these tools you can determine the search volume (i.e. how many times that search term is ACTUALLY used) of the selected keywords.
Using this search volume as a metric, determine the best keyword to include in your post title.
Step 4: Write Multiple Headline Options
Once you’ve selected your keyword, now it’s time to draft your headline.
Writing a couple different options will help you find the best title for your post and get the creativity flowing. A couple things to think about: 1) how can you get the keyword as close to the beginning as possible; 2) can you incorporate another relevant keyword into the headline without being repetitive.
How Yoast SEO Can Help Make Sure You Are Optimized…
Using Yoast SEO, you can ensure your post is hitting all the crucial metrics of optimization. A large part of this is your blog post title. Yoast checks your SEO title for 2 key factors:
- The width of your title.
- The presence of your focus keyword.
Using the Yoast Assessment tool will help guide you to the most effective blog post title for your content.
Summary
The main premise of this resource is to ensure you invest a little more time into writing good page titles. It will really pay off! Going back and optimizing some of your previous page titles after publication is also a worthwhile exercise to either boost their existing SEO ranking or revive stale content that could use a revival!