How important is a title?

We can certainly learn from newspapers. The main topic or major headline appears at the top of the page, the part that is “above the fold.” People who are in charge in newspaper layout design know the fact that people may only glance at it for a few seconds, especially on a newsstand.

For a web site, what appears above the fold is the title or heading of the page, and perhaps a few first paragraphs of content. This virtual real estate is so important that some copywriters spend as much time on the headlines as with the body copy.

Headlines, or titles, are like the ad for the content. It draws people into the body copy. According to master direct marketer and author Ted Nicholas, a good headline can outpull so-so headlines by 1700 percent.

No matter how interesting the content is, no one will read it unless the headline gives them a reason to read.

What titles are for?

Image credit: estribiyo.
Titles are very important in many facets of online publishing and marketing.

1. Search engine results
The title of the podcast page will appear in search engine result pages. It has to be interesting enough so that people click to visit your page instead of any other options in the search results.

2. Search engine optimization
Search engines pay attention to the title of the page. It is part of the equation to determine the topic of the page. People will often link to the page using the title of the page, which is critical for search engines to pick up and weight your page based on the keyword or keyphrase. Using keywords in the title is very important if you want to rank high in those keywords in search engines.

3. Podcast directories
In many podcast directories, they show only the title of the podcast or episode and nothing else. What makes people choose your podcast over the others? What makes them listen to this episode instead of that?

4. RSS feed syndication
RSS allows anyone to get updated content without having to visit a site or blog regularly. The title of your podcast episode has to compete with hundreds, if not thousands of other headlines. Each title only gets at most one or two seconds so make sure it is good or the readers may overlook it.

When RSS feed is syndicated to other sites, the title functions to grab readers attention to click through, just like in search engine results.

5. Social bookmarking sites
The social media trend is on the rage right now. People use and share their bookmarks of interesting content through del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and many others. Often they also provide review of the page, but what remains is the title of the page.

Unless the page is interesting, people may not click through if the title doesn’t intrigue them enough to slow them down.

Tips to create great title for your podcast pages

Image credit: apurdam (Andrew).
As part of publishing a podcast, you also write or blog a page that contains notes related to the episode. There are many strategies podcasters use to draw attention to the podcast pages with titles.

What’s considered good titles are subjective. Although there certainly are titles that are more compelling than others, they don’t guarantee more readerships. A copywriter may claim that certain words always improve clickthrough by xx and yy percent. It may be true, but what’s even more important is the underlying principles that makes the words work.

Following are different tips to create strong podcast episode titles. These tips also apply to the title of the podcast and episode notes.

1. Short and simple
A title should be simple and short. While long titles work, sometimes better, you want to stick with shorter ones because of the limitation of space in podcast directories and search engine results. Keep it around 40-50 characters.

Headlines for sales letter copy is different in this case, because when people come to the page, the only headline that demands their attention is the headline of the page.

It is also better to be clear rather than clever. Remember that most people scan on the Web so they may not understand instantly what’s in it for them in the podcast when you try to be too clever. The international audience may not know about the podcast if it uses slang.

2. Attention grabbing
The title should grab attention and stop the readers in their tracks. Dramatic headlines often work and if you know what the readers are most interested in, you can create a promise that will draw them in. Of course, you have to keep up the promise and deliver it in the page or in the podcast.

Good titles set the podcast or podcast pages apart from the crowd. In this era, nothing happens before a user pays attention.

One effective way to grab attention is by using benefit-laden titles or headlines.

3. Know your keywords
Keywords are the building blocks of a web site. Search engines use them to determine what your site is about, and specifically what the content of a page is about.

Using keyword rich title can help because it allows readers to relate to the topic they are searching in search engines. This is also very helpful for search engine optimization. Ranking in search engines for the right keyword is important for traffic.

Titles should satisfy both human visitors and search engine spiders.

4 Describe and reveal
A title should be able to tell what the topic of the podcast is. Unless your brand is popular and everyone knows about it, you should focus on clarity. Even so, a title should also reveal what is in the podcasts.

Most readers need to know what’s they are going to read before they actually click and read further. Titles should grab attention, but they also need to reveal or describe the pages.

The trick is to treat your title as mini advertisement for your podcast and podcast pages. What good is a podcast or podcast episode without people listen to it? Studies showed that you can increase readership tremendously just by changing the title.

So make sure you spend some time with it to make is as engaging as possible.

Worth reading: Podcast Promotion.

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