Is it time to change our titles?

1. 97

   DrMark1961posted 6 years ago

   Do the titles of your article tell the reader what is in it, but do not encourage a reader to click to read more? In the past I have read that titles should be simple but it now appears that titles should tell the reader what is in the article but also have some catchy words. Google will point the reader to the article based on the content, and it is up to the title to encourage the reader to click.
   This article was posted by Susana S in another thread: https://backlinko.com/google-rankbrain-seo
   A lot of people choose to use Hubpages for different reasons, but if you are interested in driving more traffic to your articles this is worth reading.
   Are you willing to change your titles?

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      Wesman Todd Shawposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Susana was one of the very first people to ever talk to me on this website, and she just up and offered all kinds of great advice. She's an extremely serious and successful web writer, and anything she points to or says about the business end of this is going to be well worth reading and paying attention to.

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   2. 85

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I constantly change my titles because as time goes on and I see that views on some articles are low, I find that the title is often the culprit!  I have always had trouble with titles, but am getting better at creating them,  but it takes time.

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2. 87

   lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

   Began writing my guide yesterday, and re-writing titles is a part of it Try and use parenthesis and numbers in your title, that serves well for CTR. I can't tell the CTR effect here, but it does wonders on my own site. Traffic did increase on hubs that had numbers in their titles though. It makes them stand out.
   
   Brian Dean from Backlinko does great research and I do follow his blog too. Susanna was the person that made me look into Amazon affiliate stuff. I don't remember the article, but she had a hub on it (probably still does).

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      DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I noticed you did this on your "fruit or vegetable" article. Do you think you saw an increase in traffic from this, and can you give us an idea of the percentage change?

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      1. 87

         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I cannot because that article underwent a 100% rewrite. I have a 42% increase in traffic compared  to this time last year and a 178% increase from March 13th to 23rd compared to a simiartlar period of March 2nd to 12th.
         
         But, March 12th saw a Google update and Owlcation on its own supposedly saw a 50% increase in traffic considering SEMrush reports. Articles in general improved in rankings. Also, the re-write made my article shoot to #3 for 2 days when it usually ranked #14 for the term. It is now around #7. I expect it to go up steadily in time. This is usually the trend after I completely re-write something.
         
         The days when it was #2 I had no parenthesis or number in there. Took me a while to think of a short yet complete title that included parenthesis and a number.
         
         EDIT: I even removed the old poll because the question could be replaced with a term that people actually search for.

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         1. 97

            DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Too many variables! I just added some "power words" to 12 articles that do not perform well, and will measure the results after about a month and see if there is any change.
            This evening I will take another 12 and add parentheses to lenghten the titles a bit. I will let you know what kind of changes I see, if any.

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            1. 87

               lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               Cool. Just make sure the title still shows in entirety on search. And I would suggest doing this on hubs that are getting good traffic so that you can actually see the impact. If the article receives just 100 views a month, you can't really tell if this new change was the reason the traffic increased.

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            2. 85

               TIMETRAVELER2posted 6 years agoin reply to this

               Bear in mind that titles longer than 55 characters will get the ends cut off of them, so searchers will not see the last words.

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               1. 97

                  theraggededgeposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  I think it was 55, but has now increased to 70 characters.
                  
                  http://www.thesempost.com/new-title-des … oogle-seo/

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                  1. 97

                     DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     Thanks for that interesting link. Did you notice that none of the example titles are anything like those that we have on our profiles. (Actually you have a few, mostly those that contain more information after the semicolon. Mine tend to be short.)
                     Most of my articles are already on the first page of Google, but I think my click rate could be a lot higher. Maybe this title length change will help.

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3. 91

   Chriswillman90posted 6 years ago

   That's the problem with changing all of your titles, there's too many variables to account for. I guess it's worth experimenting on for lesser trafficked articles though it's not easy putting a title together with numbers, power words, and parenthesis that actually makes sense.

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   Rochelle Frankposted 6 years ago

   I think there are some very good tips here-- it depresses me a bit to see that the suggestions all apply to TV infomercial strategies (but wait, for the the same price plus shipping and handling, you can get two).
   I have to admit the key words, emotion and long content do sell the goods.  Do you have to be a huckster to be a writer? . . .  maybe, to be a paid writer.

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   1. 87

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Do you think this article title is an infomercial: Is a Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable (Views of 6 Industries)
      
      I think it just tells people "exactly" what they can expect if they decide to read it.

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5. 97

   eugbugposted 6 years ago

   I do it all the time and try and add catchy titles, like "The Complete Guide to ..".
   I think it's a good idea to make it seem as though an article is absolutely wonderful, even though you may be only aspiring to make it the best thing since sliced bread!

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