Five Great Places to Find Your Next Blog Post Title

Posted: 10 Apr 2014 08:00 AM PDT

Do you struggle to come up with titles for your blog posts?

You might not be short of topic ideas … but somehow, the actual titles end up sounding boring and bland.

Here are six great places to find the title for your next blog post:

#1: Other Blogs

Now, I'm definitely not suggesting that you should steal another blogger's title … but you can definitely use one of their titles as a template.

This often works well with blogs outside your own niche (as then their title can't work for you without some changes).

Let's say you want to use a title from DailyBlogTips for inspiration. Hey, why not have the title of this post? Here are a few possible twists on it.

Six Great Places to Find Your Next Blog Post Title (original title)

Six Great Places to Find Your Next Short Story Idea (creative writing blog)

Ten Great Places to Find Amazing Images for Your Website (blogging / online marketing blog)

Five Great Ways to Find Unusual but Delicious Recipes to Try Out (cooking blog)

#2: Magazines

To stay profitable, magazines have to come up with great, interesting titles – and they'll print the best of these on the front cover.

If you glance over a rack of magazines, you'll notice that they often:

Use numbers (e.g. "100 Best Gadgets Ever!" from Stuff magazine)
Ask questions (e.g. "Could a mentor change your life?" from Psychologies magazine).
Use emotionally-charged words (e.g. "Lose your last 10 pounds! #1 secret inside" from Health magazine).

Grab any magazine that you have lying around the house, or head to the shops to see plenty of great examples. Grab a notebook and jot down any title ideas they inspire.

#3: Books

While some books might, like magazines, simply provide you with a good title idea, really well-known books can be a great way to tap into a framework that readers already have (and even borrow a bit of authority).

For instance, my post 7 Habits of Serious Writers draws on Stephen Covey's famous book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Obviously, you'll want to pick books that your readers are likely to have heard of. (It doesn't matter if they've not read them.)

Another option is to pick an idea from a book – e.g. Dante's nine circles of hell, or

Note: While titles themselves aren't copyright, part or all of the title may well be trademarked. You may prefer to use works that are out of copyright.

#4: Jon Morrow's "52 Headline Hacks"

In this great, free ebook, Jon Morrow gives you 52 templates – plus examples – of all sorts of different headline (which, in this context, is just another world for "blog post title").

This is a handy resource when you're brainstorming, as you can simply work through the list and come up with headlines that would suit your blog. You'll probably find that not all the different categories work for your style and audience, but you'll definitely get a great list of posts to write.

You do need to sign up for Jon's email list to get the ebook (you'll get an email whenever he publishes a new blog post, and occasionally when he's running a webinar or similar). Of course you can unsubscribe once you have the ebook, but I'd advise against it: Jon's posts are always well worth reading.

#5: Comments on Your Blog

Sometimes, readers may leave a brilliant idea in a comment. Perhaps a particular phrase they use is one that you realise rings true for your audience as a whole – and you could use that phrase in a title, or even as the whole title.

One of my most popular posts, 7 Habits of Serious Writers (which I mentioned above) was a title that a reader suggested to me in a comment. I actually thought it was a bit of an uninspiring title but went with it anyway – and I'm very glad I did!

It's always powerful to use the language your audience uses: it strengthens your connection with them, and it can even boost your search engine traffic, as the words you use match up better with the ones they use when searching.

So there you go – five places to find ideas. Which will you be trying out this week? Let us know in the comments … and if you come up with a brilliant title, share that with us too.

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