The main aim of a video title is to intrigue. You’re aiming to hook people’s attention and get them to click. If they don’t all your effort making a great video has been wasted.
When it comes to titles there is a spectrum between classy and trashy. If your titles are too trashy (“Top 10 AMAZING things you’ll never believe…”) viewers may associate the video with low-quality clickbait.
But, this is not usually the problem with the journalists or filmmakers I’m working with. Instead, their problem is they’re not trashy enough. The result is they undersell their work in a competitive environment and the video they’ve worked hard on isn’t seen. If you want people to watch your video, an intriguing title is essential.
Here are three ways to add intrigue to your explainer titles:
1. Use words that bite
When writing titles for YouTube I recommend using words that “bite”. Compare these two videos:
The same publisher, the same person being interviewed, but the first title has the word “afraid” in it and ten times the viewers.
Both of these videos are about how the treadmill was invented to punish prisoners. But look at how Ted-Ed sells it: “dark and twisted past”.
Here are some other words that bite:
Behind the scenes
Blacklisted
Controversial
Cover-up
Dark
Elusive
Extraordinary
Forbidden
Forgotten
Greed
Hush-hush
Illegal
Little-known
Odd
Off the record
Off-limits
Outlawed
Power
Secret
Smuggled
Strange
Supersecret
Unconventional
Underground
Undiscovered
Unexplained
Unheard of
2. Use mystery formulas
There are some titles that have intrigue built-in. See whether any of these “mystery formulas” would work for your topic.
3. Think of irresistable questions
As soon as you hear an irresistible question you need to click to find out the answer. For example:
Other tips:
- Think of your title at the beginning of your process. Don’t wait until it’s time to publish.
- Try and come up with 25 titles before selecting one. Maybe most of what you come up with will suck but doing this exercise forces you to spend the time and effort on this task that you should.
- Keep your characters under 70 characters otherwise they’ll be cut o
- You can always change your title and so use this to try different approches. For example, start with a title that makes the most of “tent pole” events (e.g. Christmas, New Years, Halloween) when the search traffic is highest, and then when the moment passes, change it.
- Try playing with a headline analyser (e.g. Coschedule). Even if you don’t agree with its assessments, they can be a useful way to test out your title ideas.