A couple of days ago I was trying to get through a backlog of 900+ new blog posts in my Google Reader and I ran across this blog post title on one of my favorite blogs:

“My Head is Exploding”

Now considering that this was a blog that was about marketing and selling handmade items, I paused to wonder what in the heck THAT title was about. If was any other blog, I would have went straight to the “Mark as Read” button (the equivalent of the delete button), but decided to take a quick peek to see what the post was all about. It turned out to be a pretty good post on what to avoid when marketing your handcrafted items.

This minor occurrence in my blog reading day points to a problem that a lot of artists inflict on their blogs and their readers. The “Mystery Meat” Blog Title. That is, a blog title that’s so obscure that you can’t tell what the rest of the blog post is about. While this type of titles might seem clever while you’re writing them, you’re actually cheating your blog out of some very real benefits.

1. You’re missing out on possible readership- I read a lot of blogs and sometimes I get backed up on my reading. So when I’m in catch up mode, I’m relying on the blog title to help me make the decision as to whether I’m going to read the rest of the post or not. In most cases, if I can’t tell by the title what the blog post is going to be about, I’ll pass it over without reading it. And there’s plenty of other readers that do the same.

If you want to make things easier on your readers and also encourage them to actually read what you write, think of post titles that give them an idea of what they’re going to read. Your blog post title is a “mini teaser”. It’s the first thing that your readers will see and it should be something that will make them want to read more.

Won’t an unusual title encourage people to read the rest of the post? Yes it can, but you have to write these very carefully. Make them too vague or unusual and busy readers won’t bother.

2. You’re missing out on SEO potential- If vague titles are confusing to your human readers, then it’s also equally confusing to your non-human readers. I’m talking about the search engine robots and spiders that visit your blog so they can index your post for search engine results. And the most important piece of information they get from your blog post is….guess what? Your blog post title.

Remember that it’s the job of search engines to find the most relevant content on the Internet and organize it in an easy to find manner so that if someone searches for “how to market handmade items” into Google or Yahoo! or Bing, then they’ll get all of the most relevant websites that discuss this topic. And to a search engine spider, “My Head is Exploding” has nothing to do with that topic. Sure you might get listed…but it won’t be on the first page of search results. And that’s the spot that you’re aiming for.

3. You’re making it harder to share- If you’re on Twitter, which of the following tweets are you more likely to click on?

“5 Ways to Improve Your Etsy Sales Now”

or

“My Head is Exploding”

If you’re like most people, you’ll probably pick the first tweet. It’s to the point and you have a good idea of what you’re going to get when you click on the link. So what does this have to do with blog post titles? If you’re including some type of sharing link like “Share This”, “Tweet This”, or “Add This” at the end of each of your blog posts, that’s great because you’re making it easier for your readers to pass your post on to other interested readers.

But! You’re tripping them up by using a mystery meat title for your blog post. Remember that most of these tools automatically uses the the title of the blog post as the basis of the tweet or message you’re sharing. So if your blog title is vague or misleading, your reader will either:

a) Share your blog post as is and the vague title will result in less clicks and less sharing, or

b) Rewrite the automatically generated message into something more appealing…which costs them a bit of time and effort

If you want people to share your blog posts, make it as easy as possible for them to simply click on “Share This” and go…without getting them to rearrange the title. And a more relevant title will encourage more people to pass the sharing along too!

So what do you think? How do you come up with your blog post titles? Leave a comment and let us know!