How short blog titles win

01/15/2013

The Best Blog Post Titles are Short
Bloggers have been told for a long time that the longer and more detailed the title, the more likely it will be that people will click on them.

Titles: Small and detailed. pixelperfectdigital.com

Mines the long and whacky titles bloggers have been encouraged to use to maximize clickibility, finding the the cons outweigh the pros of short and clear.

Notes that short titles increase power on both Bing and Google rankings, admitting that strange clever titles can attract more clicks. However, the clicks you receive are not your ideal audience, but people curious to see what your title means.

Short titles increase readers focused on your content. Also, studies show that short titles are more frequently shared in the social media, increasing your overall reach to your target audience.

Your ideal readers are looking for focused responses to their specific needs, which will be better met by a short, clear title.

Interested? Click the title or image to read on.

Source is Soshable.com.

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By Darin L. Hammond

Comments

Joe link

02/06/2013 7:29pm

I've got a question. I have a trademark that I own and use in books and blog posts (and soon in videos and podcasts). It's a bit like... oh, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to..." whatever. The actual subject matter of an Idiot's Guide is what any reader is interested in and nobody worries that "Complete Idiot's Guide to... Sex" book has too long of a title, etc. etc.

What I'm getting at is that, once the collective conscious of the consumers knows that every book in the series starts that way, it's no longer a long title.

So, if the Idiot's Guide folks were to do a blog, would they have "The Complete Idiot's Guide to..." on every blog title? That can spell trouble, actually, if... you know, somewhere your blog post feed (or whatever, I'm not actually well versed in feedburner stuff or anything like it) shows up, it might only show or mostly show just that first long part of the blog post title that begins with "The Complete Idiot's Guide to". Is this making sense?

To get to specifics, here are all of my blog posts (with some that are merely drafts). As you can see... well, just notice that some are trunkated:

How Can You Possibly be a Muslim Feminist?
...even Ask "How Can You Possibly..."? (Part 2)
...even Ask "How Can You Possibly..."? (Part 1)
How can you possibly know which key phrases will b...
How can you possibly express thanks this holiday s...
How can you possibly make a case against teaching?
How can you possibly be a Mormon Democrat Politici..
How can you possibly serve coca cola at an LDS own...
How can you possibly be a Mormon and a Democrat?
How can you possibly have a positive experience in...
How can you possibly survive the Rwandan genocides...
How can you possibly be a Muslim who saved Jews fr...
How Can You Possibly be a Gay Mormon?
How Can You Possibly become a Millionaire on a Lab...
How Can You Possibly Reduce Welfare with Open Immi...
How Can You Possibly Restore the Economy with Open...
How Can You Possibly Secure the Borders with Open ...
How Can You Possibly be a Member of Either Politic...
How Can You Possibly be an Anti-Terrorist Muslim?
How Can You Possibly be a Mormon and a Democrat?
...Build a Hobbit Hole in your own Backyard?
How can you possibly stand in line like an idiot?
How Can You Possibly be a Black Conservative?

You do see the trunkation issue, right? Yea, I gotta figure that out.

But, the question for you Darin is... Are these SHORT or LONG blog post titles?

Thanks,

Joe

Darin L. Hammond link

02/13/2013 9:47pm

Hello there, Joe,

Yes these would be considered long blog titles. Short would be "How can you possibly," along those lines. Note that this isn't a hard, fast rule, and I violate it all the time. However, I wouldn't recommend always violating it, especially with something that you repeat in every post.

I had a problem with this actually, ZipMinis, Blogology, Science of Writing appearing in every article. In addition to the benefits above, I would add that your followers are more likely to retweet with the short titles. Your truncated titles would yield a 0 retweet if you included the whole title, and the articles are awesome. People just don't tend to share long titles.

Google and Bing, in particular, are down on repetition. Their attitude is actually a positive thing because they force people to be original and generate original content.

Solutions?
Best - Get your own domain and move to WordPress if you have the ambition of doing anything commercial or noteworthy with your site. Along with this, I searched "www.howcanyou.com" and the domain is open. This would really shorten your urls, and keep the gist of your title. Note that the full title of your website can still be "How Can You Possibly ..." or whatever you want, but you lose the long "possibly."

With this as your big banner title and part of your url, you no longer need to repeat it in every entry, which is currently hurting you on multiple levels. You could instead, just jump in with "Be a Mormon and a Democrat" and "Make a case against teaching." People will pick up on what your doing very easily, especially if in your banner you pull a "How Can You Possibly ... " with the ellipsis.

If you want to do commercial stuff, it's really important to own your own domain, and it's easy and cheap. Let me know if you would like help with that.

If you feel it's important to include "www.howcanyoupossibly.com" this would still be just fine, as long as you don't repeat this in the blog article title. There lies the big problem.

Hope this helps. I think your idea is clever which is why I encourage you to go the professional route with your own domain. Let me know if you have questions here with follow up responses.

Darin

Possibly Joe link

02/15/2013 9:51pm

Darin,

Thanks for your feedback. I just now went and trunkated each and every post on my blog. I shortened a few titles even further (such as... " be a Mormon Democrat?" even though that doesn't exactly mirror the phrasing of my book title. Yea, shorter is better.

As for domain names… well, I actually did start off using Word Press. After three posts, though, I switched to blogspot, though I’m not entirely sure why. Most likely it was just lack of time and energy on my part.

In any case, I am eager to glean everything I can from your expertise. And right now I am gearing up to go for it and finally launch this whole campaign with some real gusto and professionalism. I’ve got three books on their way to publication and a couple of others that are inevitable but not as far along.

At the moment, however, having been stretched for cash for the last… half-decade or so, the only domain names that I continue to own are the following:

azhobbit.com (which forwards to my YouTube Channel)

Each of the following domains just autoforwards to howcanyoupossibly.blogspot.com:
falsedichotomy.com
possiblypublishing.com
howcanyoupossibly.com [& .org]

But, at one time I had owned every configuration of "how can you possibly" that I could think of, including howcanyou.org, so I’d assume that howcanyou.com was probably taken at the time.

Below is the actual list of all of the domains I snagged when I first trademarked “How Can You Possibly”.

Now, in looking at this list, I have a direct and simple question: Do you think I was a bit too comprehensive?

HOWCANYOUPOSSIBLY.COM
HOWCANYOUPOSSIBLY.ORG
HOWCANYOUPOSSIBLYBE.COM
HOWCANYOUPOSSIBLYBE.NET
HOWCANYOUPOSSIBLYBE.ORG
HOWCOULDYOUPOSSIBLY.COM
HOWCOULDYOUPOSSIBLY.ORG
HOWCOULDYOUPOSSIBLYBE.COM
HOWCOULDYOUPOSSIBLYBE.NET
HOWCOULDYOUPOSSIBLYBE.ORG
HOWCOULDONEPOSSIBLY.COM
HOWCOULDIPOSSIBLY.COM
HOWCOULDIPOSSIBLY.ORG
HOWCOULDANYONE.COM

HOWCANYOU.ORG

HOWCANIPOSSIBLY.COM
HOWCANIPOSSIBLY.ORG

HOWWOULDYOUPOSSIBLY.COM

HOWYOUCANPOSSIBLY.COM
HOWYOUCANPOSSIBLY.ORG
HOWYOUCOULDPOSSIBLY.COM

HOWINTHEWORLD.ORG

WHYONEARTH.ORG

WHYWOULDANYONE.COM

BLACKANDWHITETHINKING.COM

CJOEANDERSEN.COM
CJOEANDERSEN.NET
CJOEANDERSEN.ORG

EITHERORFALLACY.NET
EITHERORFALLACY.ORG
EITHERORFALLACY.COM

FALSEDICHOTOMY.COM
FALSEDICHOTOMY.NET
FALSEDICHOTOMY.ORG

Thanks again!

Joe

Darin L. Hammond link

02/17/2013 9:09pm

Hello again, my friend,

I'll give you my thought on this which is supported by many though not all.

You've selected your brand which is "How Can You Possibly," and you should focus only on that and your own name.

Now, you have to own your brand. What that means is that when I search Google for "how can you possibly," at least the first two solid pages that Google pulls up should be your stuff. I'll give you a few steps that might help and are essential.

1.) Use the .org or .com domain, move with me to Weebly, forget about everything else for now. If you own the name, people trying to cut in on it won't have a chance because you are so dominant. Try a Google search for "ZipMinis" and then try "Darin L. Hammond." I'm not boasting, but what you see is what you want to accomplish and I can help get you there. Ask me about coming on with me at Weebly if you are interested. There is just so much to know, and this would be the easiest way for me to guide you.

2.If you join me, I will help you register you with Google, and link everything to your Weebly account. I'll teach you about Google Webmaster, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Google Adsense, and so much more.

3. I'll help you maximize your web presence through social media - the right platforms rather than hit and miss. I am connected on about 20 or so, and get most of my traffic from about 10.

4. I'll help you register with Alexa and all the other hot analytics platforms.

5. I'll teach you content marketing to really sell your books.

6. And, so much more. But this is a start.

Let me know what you think, Joe. We can accomplish this all for a very reasonable cost, nothing like the services out there that do similar things.

Your blog is the key that will unlock the door to everything else you hope to gain, books, YouTube, and other products. We can seriously do this right if you want to, but it is hard hard core to do it alone.

I brought my blog from 0 visitors/month to 30k + per month in about 3 months, brought it up to PageRank 4, elevated my Alexa ranking from 3,000,000 to 126,000, and all stats improve daily.

Tell me what you are really thinking,

Darin

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How short blog titles win

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