It's one thing to write great content, but it's another thing to get it read and ranked -- which is where nailing the title comes in. Titles are what sell the content. They represent it in search engines, in emails and on social media. So, you might come up with a few different titles to help you focus your writing!
Before you get into the nitty-gritty of coming up with a perfect title, start with a rough draft or it's also known as your working title. What is that, exactly? A lot of people confuse working titles with their topics, so, let's clear it up:
Topics are very general and could make several different blog posts. Think "raising healthy pets" or "bedroom storage." A writer might look at either of those topics and choose to take them in very, very different directions.
A working title, on the other hand, is very specific and guides the creation of a single blog post. For example, from the topic "raising healthy pets" you could derive the following working titles:
"How the Right Nutrition Can Strengthen Your Dogs Bones"
"A Dog Mom's Guide to Promoting Your Pets Social, Emotional, and Behavioural Well-Being"
"Raw Recipes for Quick & Healthy Dinners Your Picky Dog Will Gobble Up"
See how different and specific each of those is? That's what makes them working titles, instead of topics. It's also worth noting that none of those titles are perfect -- they should just be specific enough to guide your blog post.
Let's take this post, the one you're reading for an example.
The topic, in this case, was "blogging." Then the working title might have been, "The Process for Selecting a Blog Title" & the finalised title would end up being something like "Blogging: Why You Need a Working Title!"
Do you see the evolution from topic, to working title, to final title? Even though the working title may not end up being the final title, it still provides enough information so you can focus your blog post on something more specific than a generic, overwhelming topic like we discussed in my previous blog post.
Now do you think you could go away and come up with a list of working titles an d turn them into finalised titles?