Want better title suggestions? Give AI more to work with
The title sets the stage for your article or blog post. It tells the reader what to expect and can determine whether someone decides to read more or keep scrolling.
AI tools like ChatGPT can be useful for brainstorming titles. But the quality of the suggestions depends on the information you include in your prompt. When prompts lack context, AI tools fall back on generic patterns. When you give them more to work with, the results are usually more relevant to your readers.
7 details to include when asking AI for title ideas
1. The full text
Give the AI tool the full text whenever possible, along with the format (such as an article, blog post, report, or FAQ). A title generated from the complete text is usually much better than one generated from a brief description of the content.
2. The target audience
Who is this content for? AI can frame your title differently depending on who you want to reach—like a patient versus a clinician versus an executive. The same article can support very different titles depending on who you want to reach.
3. The article’s primary purpose
What is the article designed to accomplish? Is the goal to inform, persuade, explain, or something else? Are you providing step-by-step guidance or instructions? You’ll get better title suggestions when AI understands what the text is trying to do.
4. The key takeaway
Ask yourself: If readers remember only one thing from this article, what should it be? Providing that answer helps AI focus the options on your central message.
5. Your desired tone
A title for the same article might look very different depending on whether you want it to sound professional, practical, thought-provoking, or friendly. Including tone guidance can help the suggestions feel more like something you would actually publish.
6. The title structure
You can also tell AI format you’re looking for. Do you want a full sentence? A sentence fragment? An FAQ-style question?
7. Constraints
Don’t forget practical requirements such as:
- Maximum length (words or characters)
- SEO considerations
- Required keywords
- Avoiding clickbait
- Compatibility with LinkedIn sharing
The more clearly you define the boundaries, the more likely the suggestions are to fit your needs.
Go beyond “Give me 20 titles”
One useful technique is to ask for different categories of titles instead of a single mixed list. For example, instead of “Give me 20 titles,” ask for:
- 5 straightforward titles
- 5 question-based titles
- 5 benefit-focused titles
- 5 provocative titles
AI can also help evaluate titles you’ve already written. If you have a title in mind, try asking:
- What expectations does this title create for the reader?
- Is it specific enough?
- Is anything important missing?
- Does it accurately reflect the content?
Try a different angle!
Ask AI to suggest titles based on:
- The article’s most surprising or counterintuitive idea
- The problem a reader is likely trying to solve
- A tension, tradeoff, or misconception explored in the article
- What makes this article different from others on the same topic
- The concerns or objections of a skeptical reader
- Assumptions the article challenges or overturns
Better prompts, better titles?
To see how much context matters, I ran my own experiment with ChatGPT.
First, I asked it to generate titles using a short, general prompt. (“Give me some title ideas for this text.”) Then I tried again with a much more detailed prompt that included information about the audience, purpose, tone, and goals of the article.
The results were interesting. There was a surprising amount of overlap between the two sets of titles. The additional context didn’t completely change the ideas ChatGPT generated.
However, the titles generated from the second, more detailed prompt were generally more descriptive, more precise, and more focused on what would be useful to the reader. The underlying ideas in the two lists were similar, but the titles in the second list were closer to something I’d actually use.