This article is written by Michael James J, the publisher of The Blogger Source. What started as blogging for fun and as a hobby turned to bigger and more challenging pursuits as he created dozens of blogs and soon became webmaster of two large corporate blogs.
What’s one of the simplest ways to get better ranking posts? By researching good keywords for your catchy headlines commonly known as your post titles. We often think those clever titles we create for our posts will bring the traffic in, people will read them and then want to read the content. While this is sometimes true we need to be more concerned with how people actually reach our site to read the content in the first place.
This is usually done via a search engine and those search engines determine how relevant our content is by the keywords and what better keywords than the ones in our titles.
I’ll show you a simple way to make sure the keyword and keyword phrase you use in your titles will help towards bringing in that desired search traffic.
Steps For Catchy Headlines With Good Keywords
1. Post Idea
Brainstorm what your post will be about, mentally pick out good keywords that are relevant to it and create a title for the post. Don’t worry about creating the perfect title, we will come back to that later, you just need a title to get you started.
2. Write Your Post
Now go ahead and write your post. Since you already have an idea of what you were going to write and created a title accordingly the content and title should fit well together.
3. Keyword Research Tools
There are various tools to use both paid and free. I use and recommend the Google Keyword Tool as it’s simple and free to use. If you want a more advanced keyword research tool Wordtracker is a pay for use that has more options.
4. Research Your Title
Once your content is written and ready to be published it’s time to do some keyword research on that post title. You want to make sure that title you created will actually bring in traffic via search engines.
Go to the Google Keyword Tool or your favorite keyword tool and enter in the keyword or phrase you used in the title you created. Once the results come up where does yours fall?
You’ll want to pay attention to the Search Volume both within a 30 day period and 12 month. The higher the number the more people are searching using that keyword and keyword phrase.
5. Choose Your Keyword
If the keywords you are using in your title rank high then you are all set, however if they don’t you need to do some tweaking. Use the list to find a good keyword or phrase that will still describe your post just in a more search friendly and effective way.
Make sure the keyword or phrase you choose will work, trying to place something high ranking but irrelevant will get you no where. Be aware also that sometimes there just is no viable option, if it happens, do what you can and move on. Not every post title can be a winner.
Final Note
While it is a good idea to try and make catchy headlines that will bring in the search traffic I still like the occasional creative and possibly whimsical blog title. It adds a bit of life and fun to the structured and work side of blogging.
Reference Reading: 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work
If you’ve enjoyed Michael James’ writing you should visit The Blogger Source where there are other interesting posts he’s published to “help teach readers how to blog” or simply suSubscribe to his RSS feed.
March 24, 2009 at 11:54 am
Keyword research is an important part of writing great posts. The idea of is to get targeted traffic from Google.
Great post Michael. Well done for another guest post Peter. I dunno if people are following in my foot steps. Maybe.
March 24, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Keywords research is very important in the great article. It will help your blog get alot of traffic from google.
Thanks for this post!
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March 25, 2009 at 12:30 am
Hi Michael,
Those were very easy tips to write a good title. I try to have catchy titles and use keywords that are search engines friendly, I will use the keyword tools that I am not using it to its full potetial.
Luis
Marketing Business Reviews last blog post..Make Money Online With CPA Free Report From Gauher Chaudhry
March 25, 2009 at 3:49 am
Very good, reasonable tips, thank you
March 25, 2009 at 6:46 am
Try google adwors tool to see how many people are searching for your targeted keywords. Google adwords will give you an idea of how many people search for those keywords each month.
March 25, 2009 at 10:14 am
Yup have it linked in #3, Google (AdWords) Keyword Tool. It’s my go to.
March 25, 2009 at 7:28 am
Amazing tips! “Make sure the keyword or phrase you choose will work” – I think this is what we should take care of about the keyword. I liked the 5th tip where you described well about choosing the right keyword.
March 25, 2009 at 10:07 am
Yes the key is that it will work and not to force it.
March 25, 2009 at 7:38 am
Wordtracker is a great tool for doing your keyword research although its a paid tool I highly recommend it as it has some great features for selecting keywords that are both competitive and finding some more niche ones that are easier to target.
March 25, 2009 at 8:47 am
Hi,
I’ve used the trial version and that is a good tool to use as well.
March 25, 2009 at 10:09 am
Wordtracker is a great tool, but a pay for one, with a little effort you can achieve what you need with a free one. I love free stuff!
March 25, 2009 at 10:29 am
SEO book provides a free keyword tool as well, but the best has to be the Google Adwords. Use Google for your SEO as well.
March 25, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Can’t go wrong with the Search Leader, Google.
March 25, 2009 at 1:37 pm
One way to make sure you get good keywords/title is to research other articles on similar subjects. Do Google searches, see which articles come to the top, and check out their keywords/meta tags.
~ Kristi
Kikolanis last blog post..How to Keep Your RSS Subscribers
March 25, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Great post. I think that many people (myself included) don’t spend enough time on keyword research. We just want to get our post published.
The other thing to consider is the keyword competition, it may be a keyword with a lot of searches but if there’s heavy competition it will be hard to get a good Google page. Sometimes using logtail keywords also works to get targeted traffic
Luca Di Nicolas last blog post..The Profit Lance Wealth Course – Honest Profitlance Review
March 26, 2009 at 12:53 am
You don’t really need to research every post you write, I tend to focus in on those “golden” posts. Where I know traffic will come from.
March 26, 2009 at 1:37 am
It is a good idea for the golden posts, because you’re not going to always have amazing posts every time you write.
March 25, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Up to this point I’ve been more focused on “social promotion” then search engines….although I do all the basic SEO at least, and fitting in the main keyword(s).
Posing the title as a question is one FANTASTIC way to bring in the activity; especially when followed up by the much needed call to action at the end.
Dennis Edells last blog post..3 Secrets to Writing for the Search Engines
March 26, 2009 at 12:56 am
Social is a great way to get traffic. With search engines you basically do a one time (keyword research) thing and then it’s on cruise control. The traffic continues to roll in.
March 26, 2009 at 11:20 am
I agree… I always do some keyword research before deciding the title of my articles. Its not really worth going through all the trouble of writing really nice, quality and original content if you’re just going to make up the title and keywords off the top of your head.
Thanks for this article.
JWRmedias last blog post..Apple Wants To Own The Term “Pod”
March 26, 2009 at 11:16 pm
great post, those are really good tips to creating headlines that are good for people and headlines. i never put much effort into titles, but i think this way could really make a difference.
April 5, 2009 at 8:47 am
Peter Lee – when choosing your keyword for your title, shouldn't you at least perform a Google search in quotation marks for that keyword/keyword phrase as well, not just look for a good lot of searches? Just to find out how many sites on Google there are competing for the same keyword/keyword phrase. At least that's what I do. If I have a good keyword that gets a lot of searches, but has i.e. 3.080.500 competing websites, I might look into another keyword with a few less searches but a lot less competition. What's your view on that?
April 5, 2009 at 10:32 am
@Petra Weiss: “when choosing your keyword for your title, shouldn't you at least perform a Google search in quotation marks for that keyword/keyword phrase as well, not just look for a good lot of searches?”…yes this is what I personally do as well to gauge the competition. Thanks for highlighting this.
June 10, 2009 at 2:36 am
so what you need is just a keyword? thanks peter.
December 29, 2009 at 4:58 am
attractive heading will catch eyes of visitor and using with keyword that help its to make more seo friendly.
June 27, 2010 at 9:54 am
nice article, well written, keep the good work up
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June 27, 2010 at 2:54 pm
nice article, well written, keep the good work up
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August 7, 2010 at 7:48 am
Good tips are shared in writing catchy article….
September 6, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Keywords research is very important in the great article.