Comments on: Great Headlines, Poor Rankings – Why Clever Headlines Don’t Beat Optimized Title Tags for SEO

By: Paul Hancox, copySnips

Paul Hancox, copySnips — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:51:28 +0000

Thanks, Glenn. I neglected SEO for quite a while with many of my earlier blogs, but with my latest one I’ve made a particular effort to optimize many of my posts and titles, and even though it’s only 3 months old, I’m already noticing some of my posts are in the Top 10 for keywords I optimized in the post and title.

Still, I’m not optimizing ALL my posts, and I think your post has inspired me to do this will all of them.

By: Toni Anicic

Toni Anicic — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:19:51 +0000

Before writing a title, I usually decide if the article is more likely to receive a strong short term traffic or a long term search engine traffic and write the title accordingly.

By: Homer

Homer — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:34:00 +0000

keep it up,I like it very much

By: Loren Baker, Editor

Loren Baker, Editor — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:46:06 +0000

this is another test reply to show that threading is working.

By: Glenn Gabe

Glenn Gabe — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:30:59 +0000

Thanks @Scott. I’m glad you liked my post. Regarding your battle, the good news is that you can use data to back up your side of the debate! Add the actual traffic levels from what you know is ranking and you can make a pretty darn good case. :)
.-= Glenn Gabe´s last blog ..Creative Headlines Versus Descriptive Titles – Why Optimized Titles Tags are Still Important for SEO, My Latest Post on Search Engine Journal =-.

By: Glenn Gabe

Glenn Gabe — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:28:25 +0000

Great point @Karon, and something you realize when you start heavily analyzing conversion. If you start utilizing split testing or multivariate testing, you start to realize how important clarity is!
.-= Glenn Gabe´s last blog ..Creative Headlines Versus Descriptive Titles – Why Optimized Titles Tags are Still Important for SEO, My Latest Post on Search Engine Journal =-.

By: Glenn Gabe

Glenn Gabe — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:22:50 +0000

I’m glad you liked my post @Joshua, and I’m also glad you learned about the seo plugins mentioned by Alysson. You should start tracking how the changes to your title optimization impact rankings of your posts. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. :)
.-= Glenn Gabe´s last blog ..Creative Headlines Versus Descriptive Titles – Why Optimized Titles Tags are Still Important for SEO, My Latest Post on Search Engine Journal =-.

By: Glenn Gabe

Glenn Gabe — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:20:19 +0000

Thanks @David. I appreciate it (especially coming from a veteran print and broadcast person!) Search has definitely changed how writers should think about headlines. I also like catchy headlines, but the long term traffic from natural search it too important.
.-= Glenn Gabe´s last blog ..Creative Headlines Versus Descriptive Titles – Why Optimized Titles Tags are Still Important for SEO, My Latest Post on Search Engine Journal =-.

By: Scott Ellis

Scott Ellis — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:42:10 +0000

Glenn,

Great article. I wrote a similar post a while back, though admittedly not nearly as informative or well researched, and battle this with clients all the time who think they need to be clever and often do so at the sake of SEO.

Scott

By: Karon Thackston

Karon Thackston — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:41:02 +0000

It has been proven (via Marketing Experiments and other research orgs) that clarity trumps cleverness almost every time in copy. Whether you’re dealing with SEO headlines & tags or not, people generally respond better — on the web — to clear benefits, provoking questions and end results more than so-called creative quips.