This advice is for anyone who cares about their blog post ranking well in the search results.
I see this mistake made all the time...so try to avoid it...
The most important aspect of your post (from a ranking perspective) is the Title. So spend time optimizing it for the key words you want to rank on. I think most people here get this...but they still fall into this trap.
There are a lot of contests here (which I think is great), and many here incorporate some aspect of the contest title or requirement into their post title. I see this frequently when there is an FAQ requirement or some other similar aspect. If you are doing an FAQ, DO NOT waste space in your title noting "FAQ" or "Frequently asked question." Instead, write the actual question. Also, if you do feel it's needed to include something about the contest title in there, put it at the end. Google prioritizes the title from the beginning. Don't clutter up your title/key words. It's doubtful that your customer will type in FAQ to their query. Rather, they will type in their actual question.
I'm just using the FAQ as an example. There are many others. Also, recognize that for some of the contests, many are participating...so ironically, if we all use the same/similar words in our titles, we are competing against each other.
Now, I get that you may not care about ranking for every post. This is a perfect example. I don't care about ranking for this post/nor the key words. I'm writing this to the Active Rain community. And, I have several others where I don't care about ranking - they are just for fun and to break things up/create some variety. But, when I do care about ranking well, I focus on the title, key words and everything else in that post, including header tags, alt tags/images, etc.
Just my 2 cents for today. Think twice about your titles.
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