How do your titles rate against the rest? (Image from a public domain graphic by OpenClipartVectors/Pixabay)
Your title is like a handshake when you meet someone new: it’s the first impression you’ll leave with a potential reader and also your best opportunity to explain what your post is about. When someone visits a site like LiteracyBase, there are dozens of unrelated titles to choose from. What will make your title stand out?
If you are like a lot of writers, unfortunately your titles don’t really stand out. And if your title just sort of lies there, you’re going to lose readers who are looking for much more exciting content. You could have written the most thrilling post ever, but if nobody clicks through because they’re put off by a boring headline. Nobody will ever see what a talented writer you really are.
I noticed that LiteracyBase titles often leave a lot to be desired, so I wanted to see if this was just my personal perception or if this really is a problem for the community here. I took a sample of ten titles, from a chronological list of posts that published on the site this week, and compared them with ten titles I found on a sharing thread for writings on Facebook. I plugged each title into a headline analyzer that looks at things like title length, headline style, and the use of power words. Then I compared the scores for the two groups.
Who do you suppose performed better? Do you think we could help boost the reputation of LiteracyBase if all the writers here made an effort to improve our headlines?
Let’s take a look, and see what we’re dealing with . . .
Title Length: LiteracyBase Titles Were Too Short
Length of a Typical LiteracyBase Title
The most effective titles are about 55-70 characters long and are composed of about 8-12 words. If you’re targeting a specific social network the optimal length might be as short as 40 characters or as many as 12-14 words. But you really wouldn’t want to stray too far outside of the sweet spot because it can significantly impact your search ranking, and it can even mean that a human reader who finds your title will pass right over your post because other articles have more attractive titles.
How did LiteracyBase titles fare in terms of length? They were way too short! When I sampled the titles from LiteracyBase, the average length was just a little more than 20 characters. Not one of the ten posts had a length in the 55-70 character range (the longest was 32 – short even for Facebook.) Half of the titles had fewer than 20 characters, and fully 80% were shorter than 25 characters.
Words in the Average LiteracyBase Headline
Experts who analyze internet trends tell us that we should aim for a title that has about 8-12 words. Some sources, like Co-Schedule, say a title as short as 6 words can still be effective. When targeting Facebook, a wordier title is better. One study showed better potential for Facebook likes when titles had as many as 14 words. Titles in the 8-12 word range got more retweets on Twitter.
LiteracyBase titles did a little better when looking just at word count, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. The average length for a title was about 3.8 words, with about 40% of titles being at or near the lower limit of 6 words. But not a single title even reached 7 words, let alone 8 or 12 or 14. And 60% of the titles had 4 words or less. To my surprise there was one post whose title had only two words; another had just one!
Most of the titles really didn’t communicate what the post was about. It felt as if most of these LiteracyBase writers had just slapped on the title as an afterthought, and some had obviously chosen the title before sitting down to write a post they had not planned prior to the writing stage.
Do LiteracyBase titles help or hinder the performance of the site?
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(Image from a public domain photo by IgorShubin/Pixabay)
Comparing Results with a Sample from Facebook Shares
By comparison, a similar sample from the sharing thread of a Facebook writing group turned up an average title length of just under 36 characters, and almost 7 words. So LiteracyBase isn’t the only community where writers and bloggers are falling short of the mark.
The Facebook group did have one title that approached the 55-character optimum. 100% of the titles were at least 20 characters; 90% were at least 25 characters long. And in terms of word count, the group fared well: the average title length was 6.7 words. Titles with 6-9 words made up 80% of the sample. This group will doubtless earn more traffic from their Facebook and other social media link shares. Although these titles weren’t optimal, most were long enough to communicate meaning and to rouse curiosity in a potential reader.
Please watch for Part II of this article, in which I’ll be looking at headline styles, and Part III, which will examine how LiteracyBase titles perform when it comes to power words and emotional triggers. I’ll also be issuing a challenge that I hope will help you improve your own headlines through a series of easy steps. In the meantime, check out this article on what makes a great headline!
Original content © 2016 Kyla Matton Osborne
This article was published on LiteracyBase. If you are reading this content anywhere else, it has probably been stolen. Please report it to me so I can address any copyright infringements. Thank you!
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View Comments
I like to have the title of my blogs bring out something from my blog and hopefully make the readers want to continue reading.
I always find both your titles and the contents of your blog posts interesting, Martha. I usually have a pretty good idea of what to expect from a post, when I read the title.
I recently changed the title of one of my blogs to make it more obvious what each particular post was about. This is something I really need to work on!
Titling is not easy. It's a skill that definitely takes time to learn!
Yes, writing titles is not an easy job but those who are full of ideas may write on any title on LB freely and ion detail but those who are lack of ideas may not write good titles.
The next title I chose was, “Tribute to Nurses,” and belonged to a post that extolled the virtues of this important profession. The title ranked only 26%, in large part because it is extremely short. But it’s also generic and lacks any emotional triggers.
I proposed a change to, “Let’s Celebrate Dedicated Professionals on Nurses Day!” That title is a time; and the power words, “celebrate” and “dedicated,” add emotion that improves the score to 70% – a green light. Going one step further,
I came up with, “Time to Celebrate Dedicated Professionals on Nurses Day,” which is a bit closer to the optimal length for a title. This title ranked a 73%.
As most people experience certain rites of passage throughout our life, writing about these in an informative and yet entertaining manner can result in a lot of interested readers. But the title needs to appeal to readers too! I found a lovely post entitled,
“First Born: Oh the Happiness You May Know!” The title does have a power word, and it’s got a decent length. But as a generic title, it only ranks a 66% – a yellow light from the headline analyzer.