Is good copywriting all about the title?

With the hundreds and thousands of articles on the Internet offering up advice on what the most important aspect of good copywriting is, you couldn’t be blamed for being just a bit overwhelmed by it all. One thing is for certain – the importance of good copywriting and SEO (search engine optimisation) for your business’ website cannot be underestimated and it does begin before you write the first word of page content.  

The title is obviously the first thing your readers will see of your webpage and is possibly the most powerful on-site search engine ranking factor that you have control over. Relevance is absolutely key; a title is meant to be an accurate and concise description of the webpage’s content. The more key words that can be incorporated into the title, the better your ranking will be in search engines.

Having said this, there are a couple of important things to remember when saturating your title with key words! Firstly, keep the title to within 70 characters or the search engine will cut your title short, replacing the second part of your title with an ellipsis and the impact on the reader will be lost. Secondly, try and keep the most important key words toward the start of your title even if this means your business’ name has to be pushed towards the end of the title or be taken out completely. This will help on the click through rate of readers from search engine results pages. 

With all this talk of SEO of your webpage title it might be easy to forget the importance of the quality of the content of your title and the overall user experience. There is little point in having optimised your title for search engines if all your potential readers are scrolling right on past your webpage to click on the page below yours with a more interesting and hard hitting title. Not only will your title be displayed in search engine results, but also at the top of the browser once a reader has opened your webpage and in addition, on external websites (like social networking sites) as link anchor text. This makes it even more important to combine good SEO and consideration of the user experience in your title.

Once your webpage title has been search engine optimised and is written in a way that sparks initial interest, you have your reader right where you want them – on your webpage. Now the test is in your copywriting. It only takes a matter of seconds for a reader to decide to go back to their search results and find a different page for their needs so this part is equally as vital as your title. Come back and read next week’s blog for tips on this next stage of good copywriting for your business.

Meanwhile, if you feel you want to take the hassle out of blogging for your business or need additional guidance on SEO or other aspects of good copywriting, have a look at our other services here.