The "Single Most Important Thing"

Finding a great title is the single most important thing you can do to attract quality traffic and add long-term value to your article, and it sometimes takes a little trial and error to get it right. Refer the Learning Center entry on How to Craft a Successful, Competitive, Search-Friendly Title for additional insights.

Working on Your Title

• Match your title to what people search for — Do you think many people type into a search box? A title that closely matches phrases that people are likely to search for will typically do best.
• Check out the competition — After your article has been published and Featured for a few weeks, do a search on Google for your exact title to see where your article appears in the search results. Articles that appear on the first page of results for their exact title perform best.
• Keep your title to the point — Don’t write a magazine style title. Don’t be catchy or funny. For online traffic, titles are best when direct and to-the-point. Highlight how your content is better than its competition and save the clever turns of phrase for the body of your article itself; they’ll be appreciated there!
• Be brief, but specific — If your article is about the best Thai restaurants in Salamanca, be sure to title it that way: The 7 Best Thai Restaurants in Salamanca, Spain. Titles longer than about 65 characters will usually be truncated in search result listings, and unduly long or overly broad titles can hurt a article's performance. Use a SERP Preview Tool to see how your title will appear in search results.