How to write clickable, captivating course titles?

Learn how to write clickable course titles. Be informative to give your learners a taster of what to expect and captivate them by appealing to their motivation!
How to write clickable course titles? Be informative to give your learners a taster of what to expect and captivate them by appealing to their motivation!
Clickable course titles aren’t difficult to achieve. With some thought and a little trial and error, these tips could really benefit your learners and your company.
A lot of effort usually goes into creating content of learning courses, and the same should apply to course titles.
If I asked you how much time you spent creating and brainstorming your course titles what would you say? One minute? Five minutes? Perhaps less?

The same goes to the course sections titles. How many times have I ‘ve seen course structure organised around headings such as: section one, section two, or welcome video 1, video 1, video 2…

It’s a real pity, because titles have a huge impact. Enticing course titles can work wonders for your sales and course completion rates. The course title is like a shop window of your course – it gives your learner a taster of what to expect. They are also a roadmap. The meaningful section titles can be used by your learners as a signpost or a guide – they enable more self-directed learning.

So my advice for you is to try to write course titles that are meaningful – both alluring and informative. And it is not only my advice – you will find loads of sources – sales, marketing experts and behavioural psychologists confirming that product names (so your course title) are an important element of your sales strategy.
Ok, so let’s look at it closer.. How to create a great course title for your online learning?

HERE ARE SOME TIPS – OR THINGS TO CONSIDER:

  • Keep titles short and informative
  • Focus on your audience and their motivation
  • Do your research and test course title variants

1. KEEP TITLES SHORT AND INFORMATIVE

Make sure to keep the title succinct – stick to the point and be informative. Write them based on research you’ve done, don’t be descriptive.

2. FOCUS ON YOUR AUDIENCE AND THEIR MOTIVATION

As with designing any product – when you design training, you should start with learning about your audience. Your course content is designed for them, and the course should be no different, so create titles that not only inform your audience about the content and also grab their attention. What you are trying to do here is be really clever and write the title that your prospective learners would click ( and this could be either to register for your course or to continue to the next step or section). So if you know your learners, you can try to tackle the reasons why they are taking the training. Think about why learners take the courses and inform learners how they will benefit from the course:
  • what problems did they have that led them to take the course?
  • what are the goals of your learners?
For example – your learner might have a problem with juggling social media accounts, or using some tools. Or might have a goal of managing their website on her own. Whatever the problem goal is, try to use it in the title.
And remember to Speak to what interests your learners and use a tone that is suitable for them.
  • Appeal to your learner’s motivation by tackling their interests and using their language
  • Include learning outcomes to inform learners how they will benefit from the course.

3. DO YOUR RESEARCH AND TEST TITLE VARIANTS

Don’t rely solely on your own judgment. So research, ask prospective learners or even some friends what they think.

Start with identifying the keywords your audience would search for.

Think about some keywords that you would include in your course title. When you identify them, shape the rest of your title around these keywords. There are tools you can use to search for keywords ideas – with these tools you can establish how the conversation goes, and how your learners talk about the topic, Some tools I use include Google Trends (to visualize the relative search popularity of a keyword over time), Neil Patel Ubersuggest (https://app.neilpatel.com) or Answer the Public.com – the website showing how exactly questions are asked, what keywords are used and so on (https://answerthepublic.com).

Brainstorm some course title variations

Try to brainstorm course title variations – begin with the keywords and motivation and try pairing them together to create different versions. Pick the 2-3 keywords, and try to write a short description – try to explain what your course would address why learners should enrol. You can do this alone or with a team – write down ideas and variations of your course title – 5 to 10 variations is a good number to aim for.

During my workshops, I often ask participants to create a Tweet-size describing the course – approximately 200 words. We then compare the different versions and try to pick the best one.

Test different versions to see what appeals to your learners

Testing is important and can save you loads of time and money later on.

If you don’t have a team working with you, consider asking your friends, or if you can, try to reach out to your audience, and ask for their opinion (you can do it via social media channels and groups, or reach out to prospect learners via email).

You can also test titles by tweaking the title each time a course is released to see how it performed against the last. You can also do the A/B test for your course titles. Simply send an email offering half your learners a course with title A and offer the other half-title B to see which one gets the most clicks.
Clickable course titles aren’t that difficult to achieve. With some knowledge, research and these few tips you can write winning course titles in no time! This can benefit your learners and your company!

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