Are you sad that no one seems to read your blog posts?
It could be because of the lack of catchy headlines – more specifically, headlines that are both creatively written and contain a useful keyword phrase to help the search engines find you readers.
In short, you need to rank well in search engines for the phrases your audience uses to find your type of content.
You’d think that at this point, everyone understands Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the need to have a strong keyword phrase in the headline of their blog post. But that’s not my experience.
I’ve reviewed hundreds of blog-post headlines in the decade I’ve run my Freelance Writers Den community. And time after time, I see headlines with no keyword phrase at all. Generic headlines that have zero chance of helping you gain readers from online search. Such as:
- Watch Out for the Red Flags
- Head High or Body High (for a legal cannabis blog)
- How a Marathon Can Heal your Soul
What’s wrong with these headlines?
In that first one, we can’t even tell who the post is for, or what we’ll learn if we click and read it.
In all three cases, there is no strong keyword phrase that would help search engines deliver you some readers. At this point in the busy blogosphere, if you don’t take the time to weave a keyphrase into your headline, your post is basically doomed.
So how do you figure out what keyword phrase to use for your blog headline? And more importantly, how do you artfully weave it into your headline so it doesn’t seem spammy?
Let’s walk through five key steps to creating a winning, SEO-focused, catchy headline for your next blog post:
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