The Paradox Of Page Titles – Magnetic Or Keyword Rich?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Should your page titles be keyword rich for your on site search engine optimization or magnetic to draw in the readers? I know many will claim that both are not only possible, but mandatory. To a certain extent I agree, however most website owners don’t come armed with degrees in literature, marketing and journalism degrees all rolled into one.

The paradox is simple. Great content with killer titles are useless unless you have an audience that is going to find those pages. To achieve this, you need well optimized pages that help those pages rank highly in the search results. However, if you rank highly in the search results, your pages need titles that draw the visitor in to read them.

If you can write a page title that can achieve both, you’re fine – you’ve achieved what everyone aims for. But what about the average writer? Copyblogger makes one suggestion that is well worth considering:

If you want people to keep reading, then you need to promise them something in return. Don’t give it all away at the start……..

and

Hook readers with a promise, and then close the deal with your content.

Create a title around your keyword that promises to deliver something. Then go right ahead and deliver on that promise. This won’t produce killer titles every time, however, it will enable you to create titles that are attractive. More importantly, you will have achieved a task that most web site owners find impossible – created a page title that is both magnetic and keyword optimized – and you didn’t need that degree.