SEO vs. attention-grabbing

I know they can go hand-in-hand, but in my particular case they often clash. For example for my book blog should I include the book title and author in the headline or write an attention grabbing headline? How about if I make the permalink for SEO and keywords and then the actual headline for attention? Would that work?

 

It works-but if you want to rank for the book/title, it should be in your header as well as URL and bolded/hyperlinked in the text.
I solve this problem with colons: e.g. Blues 4 Kali by Indi Riverflow: A Cult Classic for the End Times

It will also be hard to compete with the author's page, any fansite, and the ever-present "Amazon", so if you really want to rank for a book, you'll need some inbound links to each post with those anchors.

 

Sounds like Amanamission knows what he or she is talking about.

 

Thanks for the response. What do you mean by colon?

 

It's simply a convention to include a subtitle on the main line.

The War of 1812:A Battle to Remember

No Way By Ram Tzu : Off the Beaten Paths

This is a reader friendly way to have both keyword and attention-grabber in the same line.

 

You can use all the keywords in the permalink and the page title, then have the post title be "attention grabbing"

(Just use a plugin like SEO Title Tag for help)

 

Or better yet, use the All In One SEO Pack (which does what SEO Title Tag does, and so much more).

Frankly though, to answer the original question, I'd have to know if each one is a separate blog about that book, or if it's just a blog post about the book in question before I could offer my advice on which title format to use.

 

I already have All In One SEO. I'm not sure if I work it correctly, but doesn't it work fine out of the box?
To answer your question: It's a blog post in my blog.

 

It works fine out of the box, but I tend to play around with it every time I install it. Just the nature of the beast, I guess. Now, as for your question, I'd probably go with the attention header in the TITLE element, and then include the book title in the body copy - and I'd italicize it as well (using <i>Book Title</i> instead of <em>Book Title</em> since I'm deliberately italicizing the book's title, not giving it emphasis).

Get people's attention, THEN tell them what the title of the book is.

 

Does it make a difference whether you bold or italic something?

 

It does, but the point is to do it for the benefit of your readers so that the search engines will know what you're really trying to say (so that you'll be able to benefit the most from their algorithms).

 

So italic is better than bold?

 

I'm not saying that it is by default. I'm saying it is when used properly. For example, you'd italicize a book title, yet give emphasis to "ooh, pretty" or even strong emphasis when you see flames in the back of the theater and you shout "FIRE!" to alert everyone to the danger so they can evacuate safely.

You wouldn't make a ship's name bold (you'd italicize it), so making the ship's name bold could potentially confuse people when reading the page (and the search engines have been known to take this into account).