Article marketing is not only about the articles--what title you create for your article also could have an enormous impact on how many readers click through to read your article and how search engines view the content you have created.

Just the other day I received a question that perfectly demonstrates the confusion surrounding the topic of article titles.

"I have been told by some people that I should create titles for my article submissions that are as close to my key phrase as possible and other people have told me I should focus on my readers. So which is it--should I be writing my titles based on what the search engines are looking for or what readers want to see?"

This is a super question, and the answer is that ideally your title would appeal to both search engines and to human readers.

If you cannot do both, then writing for your readers will take priority. After all, if the publishers are not interested in your article, then your article will not be republished and there's no real benefit. First and foremost you have to write a title that your human readers will find attractive, however, that doesn't mean you should not keep those keywords to the front of your mind.

With a little effort you will be able to create titles that will captivate your human readers and appeal to Google and the other search engines.

Here are some tips for doing just that:

1 - If possible, try to put your keyword phrase as close to the beginning of the title as possible, preferably within the first three words. For example, if your keywords are "Dog Training", you could create a title that places those words at the beginning of the title, such as:

Dog Training For Beginners

Dog Training: 7 Tips for Teaching Your Dog To Walk On A Leash

2 - If your keyword phrase has a grammar or spelling issue, then don't use it, especially not in the title.

3 - There are different types of key phrases-- "long-tail" ones are usually 3-8 words long and are much more specific than the shorter main word keyphrases that are usually 2-3 words long.

Using the example above, "dog training" is the main keyword phrase.

One of the long-tail key phrases on this topic might be "how to house train a dog".

As you can see, the long-tail key phrase would make a nice title just as it is. Many times the longer phrases are easily converted to titles that are reader and search engine friendly.

4 - Just because you're trying to write a title that incorporate words that people are searching for in Google doesn't mean that you can't add words to the title to make it more interesting.

Let's say that your keywords are "organic vegetable gardening". You could make tons of titles from this phrase:

Organic Vegetable Gardening: How To Plant A Winter Garden

Organic Vegetable Gardening For Beginners

What is Organic Vegetable Gardening?

5 - Stay away from titles that just look like keywords. The title should tell what the article is about, specifically. That's the real purpose of the title, to help readers know what the topic of the article is.

So, definitely do not think that writing keyword rich titles means they can't also be really interesting and engaging. The important thing is to remember what the title is for—explaing what the subject of your article is all about. The primary function of the article title is to service your human readers, but with a little creativity you will also be able to produce a title that will appeal to the search engines as well.