Now headlines are difficult, Why? well because typically you will be wanting to write a headline that encourages engagement, whilst also trying to squeeze into the headline your keywords to enhance your chances of the article being found by Google in the first place. Now you get a conflict of interest because the two never marry together, or it’s a rare occasion when they do.
Getting the best of both Worlds
In our opinion the best route of course is to write the headline with your audience in mind, but if SEO is really important to you then of course there are a couple of things you can do to try and get the best of a great headline and SEO exposure
- Write the headline of your blog post with your keywords inserted
- Make sure your Meta data title has the keyword included
- Write your Social Media message and description with a really strong promise and call to action
That way you are getting your keywords known, but you are also tempting the user to click through.
Let’s give you an example
Let’s pretend that you run a weight loss business and one of your chosen keywords to rank for is “lose weight camps uk” that’s quite an uninspiring keyword phrase but it is what you do, and there are a lot of searches a month for it, so would be worth some investment so you write an article about how your weight loss camp is the best way to start losing weight. Let’s walk through how you could make all the relevant parts of the articles important headlines work for you using the process detailed above.
The headline of your blog; Inserting the keyword into your headline this could read; Lose weight camps UK location, specialists on hand to help you succeed from the start
Meta data title again with keywords; Lose weight camps UK location, specialists on hand to help you
Meta description, compelling call to action: Lose between 10-20 lbs per week at a top weight loss camp in a UK Location. Book today to kick start a healthier fitter you
Social media message, compelling message: Kick start a healthier fitter you lose between 10-20 lbs per week, specialists will help you succeed.
The first two will take care of your SEO requirements, and the second two are more encouraging for users to click through. Typically it’s because you are giving a promise of something great. Numbers also work well in social media messages,
- 5 top tips to improve your health
- 1 golden rule to follow everyday
- 10 beauty secrets the celebrities know
all of these would work to get some clicks through to your website – of course your article has to deliver what it promises once they land!
Another headline formula
This is another way you can write your headlines. A survey compiled by Kissmetrics came up with this formula SHINE. Every time you write a headline you should make sure it complies to one of these:
S is for Specificity
H is for Helpfulness
I is for Immediacy
N is for Newsworthiness
E is for Entertainment value
For the complete article take a read over on Kissmetrics write up here.
Tool to help with your meta data
Finally you can find a useful tool here that enables you to view how your meta data will be seen in the Google search results page, its also quite handy as it will do a character counts for those all important tweets.
It doesn’t help you write the headlines, but hey we can’t do everything for you!