How to Write Content Headlines & Titles for SEO – the writer inside of me absolutely CRINGES at that caption. What would Mark Twain think? However, the SEO internet marketing content developer (not my childhood aspiration) in me knows it's necessary to keep Google happy and sending people our way – or is it?

Headlines are one of the most important elements of content development. Whether you maintain a weekly blog for your business or send out company press releases once per month, Google rewards those that make it as easy as possible for people searching for content relevant to the product, service, or topic at hand to find what they are looking for. After all, the public can not anticipate whatever punk ridden title you came up with – no matter how knee slapping funny it is (or you think it is).

This article will help you optimize content headlines and titles so that search engines will show you some love, while still keeping your writer's integrity in tact:

1. Article Title vs. Page Title

You can still write an engaging article title that's visible to your audience while courting Google by ensuring that you have a content management plug-in that allows you to write a secondary page title that's kept away from public eye yet visible to search engines. For example, the Yoast WordPress plug-in allows users to enter page titles for SEO purposes. With the proper plug-in, your article about off-shore oil drilling can be titled " Politicians in Deep Water over Oil " for your audience while catering to SEO by writing " Off-Shore Oil Drilling Debated by Senate " for search engines. While you're at it, be sure to add the Meta Description found within the plug-in as well.

2. Title Length

You want to make sure your article titles are descriptive yet succinct within a limited number of words. For the "visible" article titles, common sense should dictate length. If it would not look good as a newspaper headline then the same is probably true online. For page titles, Google displays up to 70 characters on their search engine results page. This does not mean you should squeeze in every last character, but it does allow some breathing room. If you can fully describe the article in a page title with 50 characters, then do so.

3. Keyword Care

Relax on the keyword stuffing. If well written, the body of the article will do the trick for the most part in getting your work noticed by Google, so without the title ( article and page ) can somehow organically fit in more than one keyword, keep it simple. For example, if you are a local Realtor, do not title your latest blog "Local Real Estate Market is Ripe for Realtors Selling Real Estate Properties ". Google knows what you are up to.

4. Find Balance

Find a balance between article titles and page titles. Just because a SEO plug-in allows you more freedom with the former, it does not mean you should get all Shakespearean. Why not hit Google with a one-two punch by allowing a descriptive word in your visible title as well? In addition, you want your real audience (the public) to recognize what the article is about by simply looking at the heading.

5. Get Creative on Social

If your inner-poet insists on displaying to the public that you have more wit than Walt Witman or Waldo Emerson then you can do so when reposting your articles on Social Networks and other off-site blogging platforms . On article link submitting sites like Digg or Reddit , the more outstanding the title (with a detailed description) the better. When posting the link to your article on Twitter or Facebook , get as creative with the headline as you want to. Just keep things in order back at home where the original piece exists.

Source by Marcus Maraih