If you’re a writer, blogger, creative head, content marketer or just have a way with words, you’ll know how hard it can be to write a satisfying headline. And it’s not just all about making it compelling, well written and punchy anymore; if the net is your platform then you need to think about SEO, click-through rate and length as well. In a recent Hubspot article, Corey Eridon describes an easy-to-follow, six-step guide to writing your best title yet.
Keep it short.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to how long or short your title should be. It depends what your goals are and where your headline will appear. Do you want this post to rank really well in search? Then keep the title under 65 characters so it doesn't get cut off in search engine results. Are you trying to optimize your title for social sharing? For it to be tweetable, you won't want to exceed 117 characters. (That's the 140-character limit on Twitter, minus the 22 characters a URL takes up in a tweet, minus one for the space between the title and the link.) I recommend testing out headline length to see what works best for your particular audience.
I try to shoot for 70 characters or less in my titles so they don't get cut off in most emails and search engine results. Do I always hit that on the dot? No. But it's a good threshold to keep in mind.
At 50 characters, our current title, "10 B2B Companies With Brilliant Facebook Marketing," is short enough. But if I wanted to shorten a title a bit, I would simply try to rephrase it and cut out extraneous words.
For instance, I might do something like this:
- Before: Think Facebook's Just for B2C? These 10 Companies Will Change Your Mind
- After: Think Facebook's Just for B2C? 10 Companies That'll Change Your Mind
Try sounding out the title in your head to make sure it's easily digestible for your readers. The less of a mouthful you can make your titles, the better.
Always keep in mind that writing a headline is all about grabbing your readers’ attention and getting them to want more. If you read your own titles and can’t see yourself clicking, then why would someone else? Always make sure you’re writing for your target audience and give them valuable information they can't ignore, starting with the title.
For the full article A Simple Formula for Writing Kick-Ass Blog Titles by Corey Eridon head to the Hubspot blog.
And if you are looking to learn more about the power of content, download our free ebook, The Content Marketing Revolution, below.
