Writing Tip: The Title Matters

Posted on February 27, 2011. Filed under: General, Writing Tips |

Welcome back to Shvoong’s tip tap.

Did you think carefully about your last summary’s title? Did you just type “Google Google” again as a title and thought any “Google” search in Google will put your summary on top of the search results? Well, I hate to be that “party pooper”, but here’s a small tip: that’s not how things work!

Your summaries and reviews should be well written and interesting. However, without a good title, it worth no more than the touchy Christmas card you wrote to yourself last year. Both of them might be written art, but will probably be read by you and you only. So what can you do about that? Write a good title, it’s actually not that difficult:

1) Remember: Title is the first spotted part of your review. Attract the surfers, fight for their attention and catch their eye, BUT, don’t get sleazy. Your title must have a message, a promise that your review will fulfill. Let’s play the “good” and “not as good” game:

What blog review would you choose to read?

Good: Blog: News, Muse and a Big Black Dog! – That’s interesting, even if you don’t like big dogs or news; it’s a title you can’t ignore!

Not as good: My blog – Oh, really?? Your blog? Wow! I can’t believe it.. I think I’ll go to the next result.

2) Convince them! Be clear enough and write a title which is relevant to your review, with enough info but not too loaded. It’s just a title, one line, 3-10 words, 30-100 characters, no rules but keep it concise and clear. “My blog” is actually good review, but no one can guess it from its title…

Clear title:

Good: Socialization, Culture, Norms & Values Into a Society – If that’s your interest; wouldn’t you give this one the first glimpse and read it?

Not as good: Money yahoo.com – Comment if you know what this is about… The winner will get a psychic degree in the name of Shvoong’s guessing university.

3) Keywords: We all know keywords help. But using meaningless keywords only, won’t be your best choice. You’d rather use relevant keywords (and relevant only!), as part of the title, use anchor phrases of your summary. Don’t rely on keywords only, as said, we all know that trick.

Using keywords vs. Counting on a keyword:

Good: www.torrentz.com – Search Downloads: Music, Movies, Games and More – You can’t argue with success, although the text is not perfect. This is how you do it.

Not as good: Downloads – Hmm, seems like someone didn’t want to think about more than 1 word.

That’s it for now; hopefully you found these tips useful. As said, the title is important and we just saw how to improve every summary or review with just a bit of thought. It’s so easy, that it’s a crime not to do it. If making money online is a goal for you when writing, or even if you just want your summaries and reviews to be read because you have something to say, the title is not the place to be lazy, this is your best promotion!

You can always edit your summaries’ and reviews’ titles, from “my profile” after you log into your Shvoong account, just click “edit” near the summary you want to edit. Change the title, and click “upload” to save your changes (you’ll get to the summary’s preview page, see it looks good and click “upload” to complete the process).

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