Do you struggle to bring social media traffic to your website?
The web is obsessed over short-form videos, but there’s still space and a lot of interest in blog content. Social media users just need to know it exists, and they need more incentive in order to be interested in reading it.
In this post, we share tips on how to write blog post titles that earn clicks on social media.
Know what keyword you’re going to target
Keywords aren’t just for SEO. They also help your reader identify what your article is about.
This is why your target keyword should appear in your blog headline as well as the title you use to promote the post on social media.
Use a keyword research tool like SE Ranking to find the best keyword for your article.
Choose a keyword that has a decent search volume but a lower SEO difficulty. Consider using keyword synonyms, such as “fly fishing tips for beginners” instead of “beginner fly fishing tips.”
Use power words
Power words are words and phrases that trigger an emotional response in a social media user.
They catch a user’s attention by relating to an emotion they feel or want to feel.
Here are examples of power words for blog post titles (“best” is common, but we do better):
- Critical
- Discover
- Elite
- Essential
- Exclusive
- Featured
- Guaranteed
- Hot
- Insider
- Latest
- Limited
- Must-have
- Powerful
- Proven
- Rare
- Revealed
- Revolutionary
- Secret(s)
- Shocking
- Top
- Ultimate
- Uncovered
- Unique
- Unleashed
- Vital
Use numbers in your title
Numbers get a lot of attention on search engines and social media alike.
A lot of writing manuals suggest writing out numbers from zero to nine, but when it comes to titles, it’s best to only use numbers to increase the number of clicks your title receives.
If your post isn’t necessarily a number-based post, find a creative way to include a number, if you can.
Use a sentence from your post as a title
Oftentimes the best way to promote something is by teasing its most interesting part.
Choose a sentence or a quote from your blog post, and use it to promote it on social media.
This quote can be a fact about the topic you’re writing about or a shocking or emotional quote from someone you interviewed.
Avoid using click bait or rage bait
Click bait is a spammy social media technique that involves a creator depicting something in their headline that doesn’t actually feature in the article it’s tied to. They also use it to over exaggerate something.
Rage bait involves a creator doing something controversial on purpose with the intention of enraging social media users enough to click.
Not only do social media users deem these techniques to be spam, platforms like Facebook have detection systems that flag these types of posts.
The more you use these types of techniques, the less social media users and social media algorithms will interact with your content.
Let your audience know you’re going to save them time
If your blog post depicts a tutorial or guide that can be completed quickly, your title should depict that.
If you’re not sure exactly how much time it’s going to take but know it’s going to be quick, use a phrase like “here’s a quick way to” to let your audience know that your tutorial will save them time.
If you wrote a step-by-step tutorial, use a phrase like “in 5 steps or less.”
If you know how quickly the guide you wrote can be completed, use a phrase like “in 5 minutes or less” or “5-minute recipes.”
Let your audience know the outcome you can help them achieve
If your article is meant to help your audience achieve a specific goal, depict that goal in your title.
If you’re teaching your audience how to land a kickflip, use phrases like “become a kickflip master” in your title.
If you’re showcasing a list post of room design ideas, use a phrase like “transform your room.”
Use your title to explain how something changed your life
A lot of titles for reviews of products, services and techniques are pretty descriptive on social media.
You see a lot of “Spotify Review: Does This Streaming Service Live Up to the Hype?” and “The Only Music Streaming App You’ll Ever Need”.
Try sharing how the product improved your life in your title instead.
For example, say “How Spotify Helped Me Discover My New Favorite Band” or “How I Used Spotify to Organize My Entire Music Collection.”
Let your audience know you’re going to defend an unpopular opinion
If your article is controversial and you know it is, defend what you have to say in your title.
Then, let your audience know you’re going to back up the opinions you make in the article.
A phrase you can use to depict this is “here’s why.”
An example: “Pineapple Belongs on Pizza. Here’s Why.”
An alternative could be, “I’m Going to Prove to You Why Pineapple Belongs on Pizza.”
Name your target audience in your title
A lot of the strategies we use on social media are designed to help us attract our target audiences in subtle ways.
We use keywords they use in our titles, create blog posts for topics they’re interested in and even develop products to solve problems they’re facing.
What we normally don’t do is call them out in our titles.
Try this technique on social media, especially social media platforms your target audience is active on.
Here are a few examples:
- 5 Tips That are Helping New Homeowners…
- 10 Ways Pro BMX Riders are…
- How College Students Can Save on…
Let your audience know you’re going to cover a topic from start to finish
Blog posts are a fantastic way to create long-form content for your audience that covers everything they need to know about a particular topic.
It’s certainly true that attention spans are dwindling, but some internet users still like to learn everything they need to know about a topic from one source and on one page.
If you’ve created an article like this, let your audience know in your title.
Use a phrase like “everything you need to know about” in your title.
Create a sense of urgency or FOMO in your title
FOMO stands for “fear of missing out.” It’s an emotion created by social media in which someone feels compelled to buy something or join in on something after seeing so many other social media users enjoy it.
You can use this social media phenomenon in the blog post title you use to promote your post on social media.
Use phrases like “everything you need to know about” and “things every college student should do before they graduate.”
Let your reader know you’re going to solve a specific problem forever
Some tutorials can be used again and again. Some are designed to teach your readers new techniques they’ll use again and again.
Others are designed to be a one and done tip that solves a problem your reader is facing forever.
Depict this in your headline by using the word “forever” in your title or using a phrase like “never suffer from [problem] again.”
Advertise a comparison you make in your title
You likely already use the abbreviation “vs” in your title if you wrote a comparison post on purpose.
However, if a review or guide you wrote is for something that’s not the chosen product or technique among your audience, phrase your title like a comparison on social media.
For example, polyurethane (plastic) wheels are much more popular among skateboarders these days, but rubber wheels are still around.
If you write a post about rubber wheels, consider using the phrase “rubber vs plastic skateboard wheels” in your headline.
Use a headline analyzer or generative AI
Headline analyzers are tools you can use to help you create better headlines.
They give you a score to let you know how click-worthy your headlines are and share tips on how to improve your score.
We recommend headline analyzers from Sharethrough and AIOSEO.
Just don’t worry about the word count suggestions from these tools. They’re designed to help you create better SEO titles, so their word count suggestions are based on what’s visible on Google, not social media.
Don’t be shy about using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and AI writing tools to generate headlines. Generating ideas is the best way to use AI at the moment.
Test different titles
We highly recommend using a social media scheduling tool to plan out your content. We use SocialBee here at Blogging Wizard.
You can use it to test different titles using its category queue feature.
Here’s the deal: SocialBee is a scheduling tool that allows you to schedule social media posts for multiple platforms in advance from a single draft.
The tool allows you to create different categories for your content, such as “Product News,” “New Posts,” “List Posts,” “Reviews,” etc.
You can then create a queue for each category to control when each post you have scheduled will publish.
Use this feature to create multiple posts to promote your article, and use a different title for each.
Final thoughts
As Google’s algorithm updates make SEO traffic more volatile, it makes sense to focus more on social media.
There are plenty of people that would love to read your content. They just don’t know it exists (yet.)
So, now is the time to let them know it exists.
Just make sure that you balance your social media calendar with other types of content. And don’t forget to funnel your social media followers to your email list.
(If you haven’t got an email list yet, you can start one for free with MailerLite. Click here to get started.)
That’ll be the best way to limit your reliance on both search engine and social media algorithms.
And, if you haven’t read it yet, be sure to read Adam’s post on how the blogging landscape has changed and what it takes to win.
Related reading:
- How To Write A Blog Post From Start To Finish
- Proven Blog Post Ideas To Boost Your Traffic
- What To Blog About: Ideas For Your Next Blog Post
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