What is your approach for blogpost titles?

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.

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:

• I keep a Trello board with questions people have asked so I can keep the words and phrases they use in mind and use them in the title.
• I use a tool called Answer The Public for the same reason as above. What words and phrases do most people use when they search for my topic? I include those in the title.
• When I'm really struggling, I have a swipe file of sample headlines that help get my brain going so I don't have to start from scratch every time. Examples:

The Quickest Way To [Blank]
[Blank] to get started with [blank]
[Blank] Questions Answered About [Blank]

• I play around with the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer until it lights up green. Keeping in mind that it's just a tool and what it says is not the direction I have to go every time.
• Sometimes I write the article without a title and the content of the article helps me come up with a title.
• I almost never use the first title I come up with.

It's not as much a formula as guidelines but,

• Target keyword as close to the front as possible.
• Exactly what they're going to learn
• If it'll fit, a counter to a common objection

Examples:

How to set up an automatic newsletter without wasting time.

Garrett ・ Aug 16 ・ 4 min read

#marketing #emailmarketing #contentmarketing #blogging

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

#marketing #business #emailmarketing #products

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:

• What the blog is, and
• Why you should do it

Examples:

How to Write With SEO In Mind and Get More Blog Readers

Garrett ・ Aug 10 ・ 8 min read

#marketing #seo #searchengineoptimization #writing

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

#gamedev #gamedesign #gdd #gamedesigndocument

With this one, the second part could be both a "why" and a response to the objection of "But I don't have time."

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 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:

• The Cranky Developer's Manifesto
• You're Doing It Wrong™
• Your Project Isn't Done Yet
• Anatomy of a Bad Idea
• Clean, DRY, SOLID Spaghetti

There's also the titles that suggest an action or challenge:

• Please Reinvent the Wheel
• To Comment Or Not To Comment?
• Please Don't Answer This Question

That said, I try to avoid cliches and clickbait when possible. There are rare exceptions wherein I'll write a list:

• 10 Principles of a Good Code Review
• 4 Communities Every Coder Should Join

I also like when I come up with a title that feels like a book title:

• The Curse of the IDE
• The Dark Side of the Magic
• Retraction of an Obituary

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 haven't posted a lot in dev.to, yet; but one of my preferred approaches is bad puns.

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 :)