5 Keys To Writing Killer Blog Post Titles

Is your great blog content hiding behind boring or predictable titles?

Next time you're browsing the web, notice the articles that catch your eye and pique your interest. What is it about them that interests you enough to click through and look at the content? Often, all that you have to go by is the article title.

Titles matter.

I was just reminded of the importance of blog post titles over the weekend when I posted an article on PsychCentral's World Of Psychology Blog. The article was titled "8 Surefire Ways To Emotionally Screw Up Your Kid." Within 24 hours the post had been shared over 1000 times on Facebook and had been retweeted 100 times on Twitter.

What was it about this post that made it popular and sharable? It all started with the totally unexpected title that piqued people's interest.

5 Key Questions When Titling Posts

1) Does it make you go "huh?"

Is there some kind of twist you can give the title that piques readers interest? For my "8 Surefire Ways" post I wanted to give it a different approach. There are millions of how-to parenting posts on the Internet, so I wanted to do something unexpected while still being helpful.

2) Is your title relevant to the content?

You don't want to g0 with a catchy title that has nothing to do with the content. Your post title should accurately reflect the article content or you risk losing your reader's trust and decreasing your traffic. One of the favorite titles of a recent blog post was 20 Ways Shrinks Stay Sane, where I interviewed therapists around the globe on how they take care of their own emotional health. It was clever and reflected accurately what the post content had in store for readers.

3) Can you say it in fewer words?

If you can title a post with fewer words, then do it. If titles are too long they make it more difficult to share through social media. I titled a recent blog post What The Heck Is Social Collaboration? A less effective title would have been Why Therapists Need To Know About Social Collaboration: What It Is And How To Use It.

4) Does the title include keywords?

Whenever possible, use keywords in the title of your blog post so people searching for your topic can easily find your content. For example, this post is titled 5 Keys To Writing Killer Blog Post Titles. The keywords are blog, post, and titles.

5) Is it in layman's terms?

When writing for the general public, avoid psychobabble, and write titles in language that is understandable to everyone. For example, one of my colleagues wrote a blog post called Mean Girls in Marriage. That title is more approachable than using Relational Aggression In Female Partners After Marriage.

Coming up with great blog post titles is an art that takes practice. It helps me to brainstorm with colleagues or family members to see which titles work best. Do you need feedback on a blog post title that you're working on? Feel free to post it in the comment below and I'll give you my feedback!

When The Therapist No Shows

(cc) photo by khawkins04

Last week's post How To Get Paid For No Shows prompted some excellent discussions and follow up questions about how to enforce cancellation and payment policies. One comment in particular, posted by "Paul" brought up a valid concern.

Do your policies go both ways? How do you handle the situation when you, the therapist, no show for a session due to a scheduling error, inadvertently double book a session, or cancel a session at the last minute due to illness? Here's what he wrote:

What happens if the therapist needs to cancel a therapy session with less than 24 hours notice to the client?

This isn’t a sarcastic question. My dentist has a policy similar to yours and I don’t really have a problem with it in general. However, one day I needed to rearrange my work schedule to accommodate an appointment with the dentist. The morning of the appointment I received a call stating that the dentist was sick and wouldn’t be available for my appointment. Ok, no problem, these things happen. They were able to reschedule me quickly, too.

A few months later the reverse happened – I had something very important and completely unavoidable come up and I had to cancel the morning of a scheduled afternoon appointment. To their credit, they acknowledged that I’ve been a client for several years and had never missed an appointment or had to cancel without 24 hours notice prior to this incident. They didn’t charge me and all was good.

What’s annoying is that not all offices practice this. Some are all too willing to charge a client who no-shows or calls to cancel with less than 24 hours notice, but when they need to cancel with less than 24 hours notice they act as if it’s no big deal and the client is expected to simply shrug it off.

If we, as therapists, expect clients to follow through with their session or pay for the missed session, shouldn't we offer them the same courtesy and model the accountability that we are requiring of them?

When the therapist no-shows

If I miss an appointment due to a scheduling error on my end, I offer the client a free session. If I am running more than 15 minutes late to a session I generally offer the session for free as well.

When the client or therapist is sick

To clarify, I don’t charge for no-shows when there is an illness or an emergency on the client's end. If I am ill I don't offer a free session unless I was unable to reach the client and then showed up for the scheduled appointment. However, I do watch closely for patterns in client behavior. If they are sick every other week, then I treat it as a relationship pattern and deal with it as a clinical issue in therapy sessions.

How do you handle the situation when you, the therapist, no show, double book, or have to cancel at the last minute due to illness or accident?