The title is the face of the article. People judge the article by the title, before reading the article. Sometimes people don't read the article and instead comment based on the title. So I guess the title is pretty important.
People can as well judge based on the cover image (for example Twitter) or based on tags (for example dev.to).
Below are some random thoughts about titles meant as conversation starter.
Styles
Some authors have a recognizable style, for example:
- Lucas Chen: "Redux is seriously overrated. Change my mind" or "TypeScript is a waste of time. Change my mind".
- jsmanifest: "14 Beneficial Tips to Write Cleaner Code in React Apps", "22 Miraculous Tools for React Developers in 2019".
- Ananya Neogi: "HTML can do that?", "CSS can do that?".
Have you noticed some style that you like?
How to measure "quality"?
I notice that some of my posts get a relatively big number of likes, but a small number of views. It means that whoever opened the article liked it, but the title probably wasn't attractive enough so not much people opened it.
Do you track "click-through rate" for your articles (titles)?
Cliche
Cliché - a saying or remark that is very often made and is therefore not original and not interesting.
I've been taught that cliches are bad and that I need to avoid them. But it seems that this rule doesn't work for dev.to (cliche titles work quite well here). I may be wrong about this one. What your thoughts here?
Propaganda
Propaganda targets the emotional part of the brain (which we all have). For example:
- sensational titles (used by tabloids and yellow papers) works with those feeling: 😮, 😲, 🤯("Man bites dog")
- provocative titles use those feelings:
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻, 😡, 🤬 - etc. it can use all spectrum of human's feelings, like fear, anger, love
Those methods are known for a long time in mass media and now people rediscover it again for blogging. Is it morally acceptable to use those tricks for dev.to posts? It seems not directly prohibited by CoC (or am I wrong?).
Photo by Elijah O'Donnell on Unsplash
Latest comments (28)
I don't know that I have a formula. I just try to find a short, memorable title.
I especially try to find a title that feels like it could be a Thing in and of itself; that is, a title that lends itself to being cited in conversation:
There's also the titles that suggest an action or challenge:
That said, I try to avoid cliches and clickbait when possible. There are rare exceptions wherein I'll write a list:
I also like when I come up with a title that feels like a book title:
I don't have any way of tracking click-throughs here on DEV, but if the view counts on my articles are any indicator, these titles are working pretty well.
The title of a blog article can be in practice anything. You can construct it in different ways.
IMO more then the article content itself, the article title is dependant on two other factors.
The audience you want to target and how do you want to "sell" your article to that audience.
Personaly i try to use SEO principles when thinking about the article title, so keep it short, keep it very descriptive and focused on the main keyword or idea you talk about on your article.
I dont usually like when i see others using clickbaity titles so try not to use them whenever possible. But again it depends on where im writing and what im trying to achieve. Clickbait titles are titles that sell. Titles that get the user attention, not just towards the article but sometime even towards the author itself.
Example: "How i improved website speed of website X by 500%".
Who wouldnt click this?
Another way of constructing this title could be:
"How to improve your website's speed"
Now, this title takes the attention from the author. On the clickbait title i specifically put "How I ..." so this should get the attention of the users not just towards the article. Using this title i could expect more visitors to this article to turn into "Followers" (in DEV.to case).
So it depends on what you are trying to achieve and who are you targeting also.
It depends on the article most of the time I don't use clickbait titles.
I always provide a rough outline of what is the main gist of the article.
I do agree that clickbait titles can get you readers and even change the perspective of readers as well which you have to use it for good, not bad.
If you are really into fake news or the subject Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday is a awesome read in the subject that made me understand about it.
I try to just explain what they're going to see in the post... but it's an area that I could improve for sure :)
I guess, title case is more formal and traditional. I prefer sentence case as well.
1,2 emoji is fine for me, but I struggle when there are 10 or some puzzles with emojis 🤯
I have literally no idea what that emoji is supposed to be and I can't be bothered to inspect the HTML to find out.
That's my attitude when I see any in blog posts at all, but it's really off-putting when it's in a title. I mean, half the time it's just that unicode I-don't-know square box anyway because somewhere along the line the encoding broke or your font doesn't have it.
Interesting. What system do use?
All sorts, but on here, on the latest Chrome on MacOS, I sometimes get titles with squares in them.
I struggle with making titles interesting enough to click on but not over the top or click-bait. I can write the most helpful article in the world, but if my title isn't compelling no one will ever see it. My rough process:
The Quickest Way To [Blank]
[Blank] to get started with [blank]
[Blank] Questions Answered About [Blank]
Nice tools! Thanks!
Those are fantastic tools! I use them too
I haven't posted a lot in dev.to, yet; but one of my preferred approaches is bad puns.
Aaaron
I really try to give enough context for it to be useful, and not get too cute with it. It's tempting to be clever, but I don't think that's generally the job of the title.
Descriptive and indicating what the post might be about. If it's clever, it should be only be if it drives home more descriptive clarity, not taking away from that.
It's not as much a formula as guidelines but,
Examples:
How to set up an automatic newsletter without wasting time.
Garrett ・ Aug 16 ・ 4 min read
This one's keyword is "automatic newsletter" which didn't make it very close to the front. The common objection is "But I don't have time."
You Need to Start Marketing Immediately, Even if Your Product’s Not Ready
Garrett ・ Aug 13 ・ 4 min read
This one doesn't really have a keyword in it, but the common objection would be "But my product isn't ready."
Sometimes I just do:
Examples:
How to Write With SEO In Mind and Get More Blog Readers
Garrett ・ Aug 10 ・ 8 min read
The what is "How to write with SEO in mind" and the why is "get more blog readers."
A Game Design Document (GDD) Tutorial That Will Save You Time And Energy
Garrett ・ Aug 6 ・ 5 min read
With this one, the second part could be both a "why" and a response to the objection of "But I don't have time."
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