This must be one of those topics which is very often neglected, but so important! We all know that choosing a book, or renting a DVD relies a great deal upon the name of the book or DVD. Humans are fairly lazy by nature, and if a title is not attractive, the chances of making an effort to read the back of the book or DVD is slim. I am not going to go into telling you about the importance of domain names, but rather look into the importance of post titles.

Each post made on any form of webblog requires a title. Now, it’s obvious that the post title should sum up the post which follows, but should we take time planning our title? Indeed. The post title on most blogging software is hyperlinked automatically, this allows quick referencing, and is used for back links and RSS feeds. Just looking at back links and RSS feeds, we can tell how important the title is. If the title in not attractive, the chances of getting a click through are slim. Furthermore, knowing that the title is a hyper link, gives us a great way to target search engine spiders correctly. Search engine spiders read these titles, and find keywords. That being said, it is important to try and include your keywords in the title.

Often when I write articles, I try and decide my post title, before I start writing, and I try and keep the post as closely related to the topic as possible. Systems, such as, Delicious, Digg and Stumble are perfect examples of where titles are key. Hundreds of people surf around these web sites, looking for interesting topics, so if you can hit a great topic, the chances of someone clicking through is high. One can go as far as constructing a topic which sounds like one thing, but it actually another, playing with peoples mind so to say to increase your traffic, and hopefully, even though the person clicked through with one idea, perhaps the material he/she stumbles upon will be of interest! When trying this approach, just remember that you do not want to go too off topic, or try and be too clever with the title.

Another thing to consider when choosing a topic, is the categories you use on your web site, you want to hold things together, don’t make a paste about fish breeding and lodge it in the ‘fish types’ category, and entitle it ‘Fish Breeding’, rather try and entitle it ‘Breeding for different fish types’. This holds your topics together, and the idea behind this is that a visitor will read the topic, and then hopefully read other topics under the same category!

Play around with titles, see which titles get the greatest click through ratios, and work up a system as to how you decide your topics effectively!