Commercial
17 Ways to Create Catchy Blog Titles That Drive Traffic
December 13, 2015
56

Having a catchy blog title plays the largest role in how much traffic your blog post will get. It determines where the post will rank in Google, how many social shares the post will get, and if your email list will even take a chance on your latest featured post.

Go Here to Find Out More

The mistake that most bloggers make is spending all of their time on the content of the post and just a couple of minutes on the headline copy. The headline is the most important piece of the post. If you fail to create a compelling headline, then your great piece of content will rarely get seen or shared.

Neil Patel identified the key statistic why bloggers need to focus more time and energy on headlines.

Percent of People that Read the Blog Headline

Over the past three years, I have crafted over 5000 post titles. Collectively, those article titles have driven over 58 million visitors to read those posts.

Are you ready to find out the statistically backed strategies I use to create top-notch blog titles every single time?

Let’s dive right into it.

#1 Use a Number At The Beginning of Your Blog Title To Move Up The Google Rankings

Numbered titles that lead to list formatted blog posts move up the rankings faster than any other type of blog post. The reason behind this, is that people prefer to scan through the key points of articles. If they see the number 11 at the beginning of the title, then it is clear to them that they will be able to quickly scan through the eleven key points that are listed within the post.

This psychological preference drives more clicks and keeps them reading numbered posts longer than the other competing Google results. Google’s algorithm recognizes this and rewards the numbered posts with higher rankings.

I recommend creating numbered blog titles for at least 50 percent of your posts. A few examples of numbered blog titles are…

  • 9 Best Strategies for Catchy Blog Titles”
  • 21 Great Ideas for Blog Titles”

Conductor did a study on what people preferred in a headline, and the study revealed that the numbered headline was the clear winner.

blog headline statistics numbered titles

#2 The Odd Numbered Blog Post Title Outperforms The Even Numbered Title

Although no one has yet to explain the psychology behind it, the odd numbered headline gets more clicks than the even numbered headline.

The Content Marketing Institute published the results of a study that analyzed over 150,000 of the most successful headlines on their platform. They found that the odd numbered headlines were clicked on 20% more than the even numbered headlines.

Blog Titles Stats Even vs Odd Numbers

#3 Write Blog Titles That Give Clarity To What Is In The Post

One of the main reasons why numbered posts perform so well is because it leave almost no ambiguity. In all of your blog post titles, no matter what the style, aim to give the reader clarity. This means your title should tell them what they are going to get in the blog post.

The Conductor study on headlines found that click through rates significantly increased with headline clarity.

Blog Headlines Study Chart On Clarity

#4 Sentence Case is the Best Style to Use for Headline Capitalization

The three most common types of headline capitalization styles are:

  • Sentence Case“13 Ways to Make Your Blog Awesome”
  • Lower Case – “13 ways to make your blog awesome”
  • Capitals“13 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR BLOG AWESOME”

The Conductor headline study identified that sentence case is preferred 300% more than the other capitalization styles.

Blogging Headline Statistics Capitalization

#5 Use 57 Characters or Less in Blog Titles To Keep Google From Cutting Them Off

If your blog title is too long, then Google is going to cut off the tail end of it. The two techniques used to optimize title length for Google are:

  • Bare Minimum Characters – This strategy focuses on keeping all titles under 45 characters to ensure that the complete title gets read. Keep in mind that different letters take up more and less space. For example, the letter w takes up 4 times the amount of space as the letter i. If you limit the title to 45 characters, then it will only get cut off about 2% of the time.
  • Stacking The Target Keyword Phrase At The Beginning – If you use this strategy, then you will not be bound to a character limit. Just be sure the keyword phrase that you are wanting to be seen and rank for is in the first half of the blog title.

Moz studied over 28,000 titles that were on the first page of Google results for popular keyword phrases. They found that the range of post titles to be cut off was 42 to 68 characters, with the average being 57.7 characters.

Maximum Number of Characters in Google Titles

#6 The Ideal Number of Words For A Blog Title is Six

Now you do not need to go crazy on this one and only write headlines with six words. The big takeaway from this is to make your first six words count. Because people scan headlines, those six words need to quickly state what the article is about. These examples of longer headlines demonstrate how get the primary message across in the first six words:

  • 21 Tips for Making Blog Titles That Rock”
  • 7 Stats on Blog Titles That Will Shock You”

CoSchedule analyzed a group of different studies on headline length, and they confirmed that six words is the magic number.

Ideal Number of Words for Headlines

#7 Using One Superlative in Your Blog Title Will Get You The Best Results

A superlative is a strong adjective that is placed at the beginning of the title for extra emphasis. They can give you a boost in clicks, but you want to limit yourself to one really good one in your blog title.

  • Title without superlative“17 Ways to Get More Blog Traffic”
  • Title with superlative“17 Best Ways to Get More Blog Traffic”

The Conductor study found that 51% of the people they surveyed preferred 0-1 superlatives in the headline.

Number of Superlatives in Headlines Chart

#8 Scare Them Into Clicking With a Negative Superlative

Life insurance commercials having been scaring us into buying policies for decades. The same psychological concept works with blog titles. For example, “11 Best Ways To Build Your Business” does not get as many clicks as “11 Worst Things That Will Destroy Your Business.”

Outbrain did a study on 65,000 titles within their network to compare titles with negative, positive, and no superlative. The titles with the negative superlatives clearly outperformed the rest by 30%.

Blog Title Headline Graph Superlatives

#9 Incorporate The Most Shared 3 Word BuzzFeed Phrases Into Your Blog Titles

Buzzfeed is widely known as the king of headlines. They have spent millions on coming up with and analyzing headlines that outperform the rest. Instead of racking your mind to come up with your own clickable phrases, it is much easier to steal a page from Buzzfeed’s playbook.

Max Woolf was able to identify Buzzfeed’s most shared three word phrases. Not all of these will carry over to your blog topics, but there are at least ten all encompassing phrases everyone can use.

Most Popular Buzzfeed Headlines Statistics

#10 Use “You” or “Your” to Address the Reader in the Blog Title

People like to feel as if you are talking directly to them. Here are a couple of examples of reader addressed titles:

  • “19 Great Blog Strategies That Will Grow Your Traffic”
  • “9 Blog Marketing Tips Just For You

Buffer analyzed the most shared headlines on their platform, and they found that reader addressed titles ranked second behind the list post title.

Most Shared Headlines on Social Media

#11 Do Not Come Across Too Pushy in Your Blog Titles

When creating compelling blog titles there is a fine line between being persuasive and being pushy. Here are a few examples of pushy headlines to avoid:

  • “31 Blog Titles You Have To Start Using Today”
  • “17 Must Have Headlines You Need to Use on Your Blog”

Outbrain’s headline study found that pushy headlines actually decreased engagement by 20%.

Pushy Blog Headline Statistics

#12 Use a [Bracketed] Word in Blog Titles For Specific Types of Content

There are many people that love certain kinds of content. The bracketed word is the universal way for identifying specific types of content. Some of the bracketed content types with the highest click through rates are:

  • Templates“8 Keys to Writing the Perfect Blog Title [Template]“
  • Infographics“13 Eye Opening Stats on Headlines [Infographic]“
  • Interviews“How Richard Branson is Changing the World [Interview]“

V3b revealed that bracketed clarifications in headlines increased the click through rate by 38%.

Effect of Brackets on Headlines

#13 Women Like Numbered Headlines More Than Men

If you have a gender specific blog focused on females, then you may want to use numbered blog titles in every 2 out of 3 posts.

The Conductor headline survey pointed out that women prefer numbered headlines almost 20% more than their male counterpart.

Gender Statistics Blog Headlines

#14 Use Power Words to Create Emotional Blog Titles

CoSchedule conducted a study that measured the effect of the Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) of headlines on the total number of shares a post has. The results showed that the average EMV for posts with over 1000 shares was twice as high as posts with less than 100 shares.

Emotion Words in Blog Post Headlines

So… How do you capitalize on this knowledge?

You can start by incorporating some of the 180 power words that the famous copywriter Karl Stepp uses for emotional selling.

Karl Stepp Power Words For Emotional Headlines

#15 If You Are Going To Ask a Question in Your Blog Title, Use “How”

The only primary question word that performs well in headlines is “How.” A good example of this would be, “How to Write Killer Blog Headlines.”

BuzzStream identified the worst performing BuzzFeed headlines of all-time. They were able to narrow it down to 10 different styles of posts. Three of those ten were questions.

  • Would you…
  • What should…
  • Are you…

Worst Performing Headline Statistics

#16 Use CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to Fine Tune Your Blog Title

This tool will make sure your blog title is in perfect order before you publish your next post. Here are a few key areas it analyzes:

  • The right mix of common, uncommon, emotional and power words.
  • The ideal character and word count.
  • A preview of how the blog title will look in Google and in email.
  • Identification of the primary words people will read when skimming your headline.

Coschedule Blog Title Analysis

#17 Use Portent’s and Tweak Your Biz’s Title Generators To Spark Headline Ideation

If you ever get stuck on creating a title for a specific subject matter, then take a few minutes to get some inspiration via an online title generator. Two of the best are by Portent andTweak Your Biz. Pop in your core word and you will get an endless number of potential headlines.

Blog Title Generator Example

Congratulations… You are now equipped with all seventeen strategies that I use to come up with exceptionally catchy blog titles.

Be sure to take action and create the next five blog titles using the strategies and tools you have learned about today. Before you do that, please take a moment to share this post on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. I appreciate all of your support.

Leave a Reply

56 comments

  1. An interesting discussion is worth comment. I believe
    that you need to write more about this topic, it may not be a taboo subject but usually
    people do not speak about these subjects. To the next!

    Kind regards!!

    1. Hi Claudia,

      Thanks for your support.

      Regards,
      Piera

  2. Hurrah! Eventually I got a website from where I understand how to actually get helpful facts concerning
    my study and knowledge.

    1. Hi Isabella,

      Thanks for your support.

      Regards,
      Piera

  3. This is a good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere.
    Simple but very accurate info… Appreciate your sharing this one.
    A must read article!

  4. Thanks for the good writeup. It in reality was a entertainment account it.
    Look complex to far added agreeable from you! By the way, how can we be in contact?

  5. Awesome issues here. I’m very happy to see your article.

    Thank you so much and I am taking a look ahead to
    touch you. Will you kindly drop me a e-mail?

  6. I visit every day a number of sites and websites
    to see articles or reviews, except this website presents feature based articles.

  7. Awesome site you have here but I was curious if you knew
    of any community forums that cover the same topics discussed in this article?
    I’d really like to be a part of group where I can get advice from other experienced people that share the same interest.
    If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
    Many thanks!

  8. Thanks to my dad who told me about this webpage, this weblog is truly awesome.

  9. Very quickly this website will be famous amid all blogging people, as a result of it’s good articles or reviews

  10. No matter if some one searches for his necessary thing, so he/she
    wants to be available that in detail, so that thing is maintained over here.

  11. In fact when someone doesn’t understand then its approximately other visitors that they may help, so
    here it happens.

  12. Admiring the time and effort you put into your blog and in depth information you
    provide. It’s great to come across a blog every once in a
    while that isn’t the same unwanted rehashed information. Great read!

    I’ve saved your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.

  13. My brother suggested I might like this blog. He
    was totally right. This post actually made my day. You can not imagine just how much
    time I had spent for this information! Thanks!

  14. Great post. I used to be checking constantly this blog and I’m impressed!
    Extremely helpful info specifically the final part :) I handle such information a
    good deal. I used to be seeking this particular information for any while.
    Many thanks and have a great time.

  15. Wonderful blog! I discovered it while searching on Yahoo News.
    Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed
    in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never appear
    to arrive there! Thanks

  16. I look at this bit of writing fully concerning the
    difference of newest and earlier technologies, it’s amazing article.

  17. Hello mates, its enormous paragraph regarding cultureand completely defined, keep it up all the time.

  18. I am certain this article has touched every one of the
    internet visitors, its really really nice paragraph on developing new webpage.

  19. Your look is actually unique in comparison to other folks I’ve read stuff from.

    Many thanks for posting in case you have an opportunity,
    Guess I’ll just bookmark this page.

  20. I enjoy the helpful information you provide in your articles.
    I will bookmark your blog and check again here regularly.
    I am just quite sure I’ll learn many new stuff below!
    Good luck for the following!

  21. Hi to every body, it’s my first go to see of this website;
    this webpage includes amazing and actually excellent data in support of visitors.

  22. I know this if off topic but I’m looking at starting my blog and was wondering what
    all is needed to have setup? I’m assuming developing a blog like yours would
    cost you a pretty penny? I’m not very web smart so I’m not 100% certain. Any suggestions or advice could be greatly appreciated.
    Many thanks

    1. Hi,
      Thanks a lot for stopping by and read our posts, for more info just send us an email or a message on Fb, we will be happy to help you with some tips. Take care.

  23. Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this,
    like you wrote the book in it or something.
    I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but instead of that,
    this is great blog. A great read. I will certainly be back.

  24. I constantly spent my thirty minutes to read this website’s content daily together with a cup of coffee.

  25. Hello! I’m at work browsing your blog from my new iphone 4!
    Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look
    forward to all your posts! Carry on the fantastic work!

  26. I’m gone to inform my little brother, that he should also visit this website on regular basis to obtain updated from latest news update.

  27. It’s amazing to pay a quick visit this web site and reading the views of all friends regarding this post, while
    I am also keen of getting experience.

  28. I am just uncertain where you are having your information, but great topic.
    I should invest some time learning more or understanding more.
    I appreciate you magnificent information I was looking for this
    info for my mission.

  29. I’m really impressed with your writing talents as well
    as with all the format for your blog. Is this a paid subject or do you modify it on your
    own? Anyway stay up the excellent good quality writing,
    it’s uncommon to check a great blog like this one today..

  30. Asking questions are truly pleasant thing should you be not understanding something fully, however
    this bit of writing provides good understanding even.

  31. I appreciate you finally writing about >17 Ways to Create Catchy Blog Titles That
    Drive Traffic – AM:PMVA <Liked it!

  32. Very shortly this website is going to be famous among all blogging and site-building users, on account of it’s pleasant posts

  33. This post will help the net viewers for setting up
    new website or possibly a weblog from begin to end.

  34. Hello very cool site!! Man .. Excellent .. Wonderful .. I will
    bookmark your site and take the feeds additionally?
    I am happy to seek out so many helpful information here in the put
    up, we need work out extra strategies on this regard, thanks for sharing.
    . . . . .

  35. Your personal style is incredibly unique as compared to other people I’ve read stuff from.
    Be grateful for posting once you have the chance, Guess I will just bookmark this internet site.

  36. I am truly pleased to read this website posts which contains tons of valuable information, thank you for providing these information.

  37. I simply want to say I am just very new to blogs and absolutely loved this web site. Almost certainly I’m want to bookmark your site . You surely have really good article content. Cheers for revealing your blog.

  38. Quality content will be the main to interest the users to pay a brief visit the site, that’s what this web site is providing.

  39. Its like you learn my thoughts! You appear to comprehend
    a whole lot approximately this, such as you wrote the e book within it or something that
    is. I do believe that you just can do with some percent to pressure the content home a little bit, but
    other than that, this really is magnificent blog.
    A fantastic read. I am going to definitely be back.

  40. I simply want to mention I am just new to blogging and site-building and really enjoyed your blog. Almost certainly I’m planning to bookmark your blog post . You absolutely come with perfect writings. Thank you for sharing with us your webpage.

  41. I just want to tell you that I am just very new to blogs and really loved your page. Almost certainly I’m going to bookmark your blog post . You actually come with awesome posts. Thanks for revealing your webpage.

  42. I simply want to say I am newbie to weblog and actually enjoyed you’re web site. Very likely I’m going to bookmark your blog . You actually come with good article content. Appreciate it for sharing with us your web-site.

  43. I just want to mention I am very new to blogs and definitely savored you’re web-site. Almost certainly I’m want to bookmark your blog post . You absolutely come with fantastic articles. Appreciate it for sharing your blog.

  44. I just want to tell you that I am just all new to weblog and really enjoyed your web blog. Likely I’m going to bookmark your blog post . You really have good posts. Cheers for sharing your website page.

  45. I simply want to mention I’m new to weblog and actually loved your web blog. Most likely I’m going to bookmark your blog post . You actually come with tremendous writings. Thanks for sharing your web-site.

  46. I just want to tell you that I am new to blogs and certainly loved you’re blog. Very likely I’m likely to bookmark your site . You absolutely come with fantastic posts. Appreciate it for sharing your web page.

  47. I just want to mention I am just newbie to blogging and site-building and absolutely liked you’re website. Very likely I’m going to bookmark your website . You certainly have beneficial writings. Appreciate it for sharing your blog.

  48. I simply want to say I am all new to blogging and site-building and actually savored this web-site. Very likely I’m likely to bookmark your blog . You really come with very good articles. Thanks a lot for revealing your website.

  49. I just want to tell you that I’m newbie to blogs and really liked your web site. Most likely I’m going to bookmark your blog . You really have awesome articles and reviews. Thanks a lot for sharing with us your blog.

  50. Howdy! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give
    a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading
    through your blog posts. Can you recommend any other
    blogs/websites/forums that go over the same subjects?
    Thanks for your time!

  51. I used to be suggested this blog by my cousin. I am just unclear whether
    this post is authored by him as nobody else know such detailed about my
    problem. You’re incredible! Thanks!