Why Torture Yourself? 3 Quick Tips on Writing Titles

I hate writing titles. I am not alone. I think humans in general hate writing titles. Why is it so frustrating and hard?

For me, it’s trying to get the gist of the piece across in a quick and somewhat clever way – although in the age of the internet, a “clever”title is less desirable than in print. Here are 3 things I think about when I’m creating (and re-creating and re-creating) a title:

1.       Be upfront and clear about what your piece is about. People need to be able to glean what they will be reading by a quick glance at your title – if your title is too fancy and poetic, you’ve lost them. For example,

Passionate Pointers on Penning the Perfect Primary Prose on your Piece

Besides the fact that my use of alliteration makes me want to throw up, this overly constructed and flowery title is likely to get passed over because it’s not direct and/or clear. When writing for the web, especially instructional or persuasive writing, tell the potential reader exactly what they’ll get and in a quick and clear-cut way; so, instead, write:

Tips on Writing Better Titles

Now, this title is better than the previous, but could still use some work.

2.       Tell people how much they’ll have to read. Again, writing for the web is a different animal than writing for print. People have so much information coming at them online, often have a lot to do, and usually have little time to spend on each thing they read. If you tell them upfront about how much time they’ll have to spend reading your piece, they’re more likely to check it out.

3 Quick Tips on Writing Better Titles

Now I’ve added how many tips I’ll be giving them in the post, plus I added in that awesome adjective “quick.” People love quick. People love easy. Give them what they want! Again, this title is getting better, but let’s see what else we can do.

3.       Grab people’s attention by using “click-worthy” words. Think about the things you click on when you wander around the internet. Take a moment and visit a news site or even Twitter and scroll through the titles/tweets with links – which ones grab you and make you want to click it? It’s usually the ones that have language that jumps out, or maybe something controversial.  

Why Torture Yourself? 3 Quick Tips on Writing Titles

Those first 3 words will usually pique someone’s interest and hopefully get them clicking on my link right away. The post I’ve written with the most page views is “Twitter is Stupid”: Why You Should Reconsider. The beginning of my title is what grabbed people’s attention, especially because I tweeted links to this post on the place I was calling “stupid.” Most of my clicks came from Twitter – people on Twitter saw my accusation, instantly brought out the defense, and wanted to see what I was trying to say (and maybe fight me on it.)

In the future I’m going to give you guys some easy tips on finding inspiration for your titles. In the meantime, please share any tips you have for writing a great title and/or what you use for inspiration.

P.S. Thanks to @PaulThomasPharm for sharing the link to WritingStyle for Print vs. Web