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Writing Good Titles – A Simple Step By Step Template

By: Peter Houghton

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What is the most valuablepiece of real estate in your article or blog post? Is it the introduction where you let your audience know what they are in for? What about the body of the article where they have their problems solved or the resources box where you put your call to action?

The essential part of your article is your title. Get this wrong and you lose your hard earned readers in 3 seconds flat. Stop for a moment and consider how a reader will deal with the material you have created for them. First, they will read your title. If they think it will solve their problems, they will click on the link to read the full article.

Next, they will read the introduction paragraph. This might take a minute depending on how fast they read or the length of text. The third test is the body of the article. Is it teaching them what you promised?

In total, there are three gates for your audience to pass through before they get to where you want them to be. And that is the conclusion or bio box at the end with your call to action. If a reader chooses not to pass through any of these gates, then the article fails to meet that end goal.

For you as the author, the critical test is the title. This is the first contact you have with your reader. You have just 8 to 10 words to generate interest and pass that first test. With this in mind, I am bewildered as a site owner how often people get this wrong. I get several requests to be a guest author on my sites with titles such as -

Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS)? Are You Really Taking Care Of It Or Just Putting A Bandaid On It? Real Natural Solutions! Read This!

Core Value Eating

Muscle building

These are real titles I just pulled from my request list. It does not matter how good the article is, I simply wont bother reading it if it has a title like these. The first title is excessive and wastes valuable real estate with junk words. Putting 'read this' into a title is a quick way to turn off your audience.

The next two titles are not descriptive enough. The writer has only indicated the general market the article is describing. What benefit am I going to get by investing my time in reading this article? A title is not a classic 'who dunnit' where you keep the audience guessing.

If you are really bad at writing (and I think we all agree that we just reviewed 3 terrible examples), here is a simple template to help you write better openers. It won't create award winning titles for you, but if you go from a poor writer to an average or even good writer, then your results will increase significantly.

Think about what you are writing about and then answer three questions -

1. What is your micro niche? Get as detailed as possible.
2. What is reader going to get?
3. What is the benefit to them for reading your article?

Lets apply this simple template to the PMS title we read earlier.

1. What is the micro niche – PMS pain
2. What is the reader going to get – 3 natural solutions
3. What is the benefit to the reader – put an end to premenstrual pain

String them together we get –

PMS Pain – 3 Natural Solutions To Reduce Premenstrual Pain

Now you have a starting point, play around with it a little if you want -

PMS Pain – How To Naturally Put An End Premenstrual Pain

PMS Pain – How To Naturally Put An End Premenstrual Pain With Few Side Effects

These are good titles. They are not fantastic titles, but this simple template will give you far better results than trying to pack half of your word count into the heading.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Do you need to get back to basics with your writing? Become a persuasive article writer by following some simple steps. The Persuasive Essay Guide is a resource for all writers wanting to pick up some pointers and lift their game.

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