The Importance of Keywords in Headlines

People who write content for websites and blogs generally fit into one of two camps: Those who believe that keywords in the headline are of higher importance than anything else, and those who say you should "write to be read," and who place almost no importance on keywords in the headline.

Those in the first camp believe that title keywords help your site to land higher in search engine rankings, and thus get more clicks. But those in the second camp think that it's pointless to land high in the search engine results, especially if the copy is so convoluted that nobody reads or understands it anyway.

So which view is the correct one?

As with so many things in life, the answer lies somewhere in between.

Keywords are important in writing great headlines. But their real significance is something completely different from what SEO experts have long said.

Coming up with good keywords gets you in the minds of your readers. Think about a topic someone might want to research; let's say its yo-yos. Before the advent of the Worldwide Web, there was no sure way to know what words came to mind when people wanted to talk about or research yo-yos. But then came the Internet Age and search engines... Then there were keywords. Now, by doing a little research into keywords, you can understand what words a reader thinks about when he thinks of yo-yos. Armed with that information, you can better target your article towards him and his interests. In short, keyword research helps you make sure that you are using the reader's own language as you write to him.

Wait there's more... As you develop your keyword-writing skills, you'll discover that it's best to not go for the most popular keywords. Instead, make skilled use of niche phrases. This works better because so few people use them on their sites. Therefore there's not as much competition for you. Plus there are considerably more of these than the standard, popular keywords.

By writing in this way, using niche phases rather than popular keywords, you will go a long way towards writing things that can actually be understand by real-life human beings. Niche phrases are easier to read and help generate better headlines.

The bottom line is this: The reason that keywords are important for your headlines is that by learning to speak the language that real people speak, you are sure to gain more readers and more links to your site.

The conclusion then is this: Use keywords to write great headlines, but use real-world language as you do so. This is the long-term road to improving your site's traffic, and the quality of your articles.