33 Easy Ways To Write A Headline That Will Get The Best Result
According to Copy blogger, 8 out of 10
people will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 tend to proceed to
read the rest of the post. Yikes, right?
This is really important
to understand before you publish your
content—even if it’s truly unique and innovative, a weak headline
will ruin its chances of being super successful.
Fortunately, data and
analytics are there to help you write great
headlines that will instantly capture the attention of your readers.
Here’s your ultimate guide to write a great headline, backed by
research.
Upworthy’s co-founder Peter
Koachley had their website tested and came to a striking conclusion: Traffic
directed to content on the website could vary by up to 500% because of headlines.
That’s probably something we
all knew instinctively, but now we’ve got tangible proof. Next time you
think you’re spending too much time coming up with a headline, just
remember that.
In fact, Upworthy is no
stranger to investing a lot of time into finding the perfect headline for their
posts, often writing at
least 25 headlines for every single thing they publish. To those
guys, getting 500% more traffic by investing a bit more time into writing
awesome headlines is worth the extra effort.
And Quicksprout suggests spending half the amount of time it took to create your
content on writing an amazing headline. Wow.
So here are 5 ideas for
optimizing your headlines to bring in loads of traffic:
1. Focus your headlines on
helping instead of telling.
Have a look at the most
popular Google searches—they’re mostly about solving a problem in the
easiest and fastest way.
This Mashable post entitled ‘How to Pay,
Exercise and Take Photos Using Apple Watch‘gained more than 1,500
shares—mainly because it addresses an issue owners of this cutting-edge device
find relevant to their experience.2. Suggest the best way to do something.
Successful headlines
connect with common searches and address a real target audience looking
for the most effective strategies for solving their problem.
Posts starting with ‘The best
way to…’ have the potential to go viral super quickly. Look at this one from
Entrepreneur entitled ‘The Best Ways to Do Market Research for Your Business Plan‘—it
was shared more than 6,000 times!
3. Give advice for
improvement.
Instead of persuading your
readers to do something, show them why it’s worth to do
it. Addressing the reasons and motivations of your readers serves as
the basis for a really powerful message.
Consider this extremely
popular post entitled ‘Why You Should Forget Facebook‘. The headline promises to
resolve the cognitive dissonance it creates—after all, why should anyone want
to ignore the largest social network? A headline like this one practically
guarantees traffic.
4. Provide solid evidence
to support your claim.
There’s nothing more powerful
than the ‘backed by science’ claim. Insights derived from research are
considered more accurate, relevant and attractive.
Have a look at this post from
Inc.com on ‘10 Productivity Strategies Backed By Science‘. It
has more than 1,100 shares—primarily because readers consider scientific findings credible.5. Share your experience.
‘What I learned’ is another
great headline strategy. Speaking to your readers from experience, you’ll
not only gain their trust, but also promise a solution that really works.
A striking example of this
kind of post is ‘What I Learned from Being a Broke, Unemployed Graduate‘published
on Entrepreneur. That post’s 19,000+ shares speak for themselves.How Perfect Is Your Headline?
This study from Moz
shows that readers like posts that are either understated and feature up to one superlative word or go overboard with
superlatives in showing why the content is worth reading.
What does it mean for you? If
you want your post to go viral, your headline must be located at one of those
two extremes; otherwise it won’t catch anyone’s attention.
6. Use positive superlatives
for a strong, emotional headline.
Positive superlatives that
will help you in headline writing are as follows: best, always, fastest,
easiest, most, greatest, largest, funniest, hottest, strongest, biggest, ever,
perfect, top.
7. Try negative superlatives
to draw on fear and doubt.
A study by Outbrain showed
that headlines featuring negative superlatives performed 30% better
than those with positive superlatives.
What are negative
superlatives? Never, worst, nothing, no one, no way, by no means, none.
Featuring words like stop, avoid or don’t in your headline is a good idea, too.
8. Front-load your headline
structure.Make sure that your superlative—whether it’s positive or negative—is always at the front of your headline. ‘7 Worst Mistakes of Young Startups’ sounds much better than ‘7 Mistakes Made by Young Startups That Are Worst’.
9. Going extreme can be worth it.
This study from Startup Moon
showed that using aggressive or violent words like kill, fear,
and dead actually generates more social shares. If these expressions
fit your context and aren’t offensive to anyone, use them to draw even
more emotion from your readers.
The Ideal Length Of A Headline
This KISSmetrics study showed
that readers tend to absorb only the first three
words and the last three words of a headline. Keeping a headline no
longer than six words will help readers easily process it and reduce the
interaction cost involved in grasping its meaning.
If you can’t limit your
headline to six words, bear in mind that it’s the first and last words that
count most. Use this knowledge to your advantage by including attractive
keywords in these places. Here’s what to remember when writing your
headline:
10. Understand the media types
where you’ll use your headline.
The length of your headline
depends on what you want to do with it—different lengths work for different
media like emails, social networks, search engines, and language engagement.
11. Avoid ambiguity and get to
the point.
If you want to follow the
traditional strategy, write headlines that are information and keyword-rich,
match the expectations of your target audience, and are understandable even
when taken out of context.
12. Try an alternative
headline for social media.
If your headline is meant for
social media, you can make it slightly longer and bizarre, emotion-rich, devoid
of keywords, and based on shock or curiosity factor.
13. Condense your
headline for email.
Headlines that perform well in
emails are usually around 50 characters long and feature the strongest words at
their beginning.
14. Write for search engines
to help your readers find your content.
Search engines will favor
headlines that are shorter than 70 characters and keyword-rich.
15. Know the best
length for your language.
If you want your headline to
perform well in your language group, consider the following for English: It
should be between 60–100 characters and 16–18 words long.
Remember that every language
has its own rules—only testing can unveil what really works.
What Does Your Headline Actually
Look Like?Moz also surveyed their respondents about their headline capitalization preferences. And guess what? Apparently, 21% of them admitted that they liked to be shouted at with headlines written in capital lettering. If you want to go for a safer approach, just capitalize your words in title case—64% of respondents reported to like this.
16. Choose a strong typeface.
Choose a font that has a
strong visual impact and a personality, but also fits the body text. Here’s a
guide from CrazyEgg to help you find the right font.
17. Size your headlines to
stand out.
Make your headline visibly
larger than body text. Its size can make it really eye-catching, even when
pushed to extreme. According to a study by Smashing Magazine, most of the best
blogs’ most popular headline sizes range from 20–36 pixels, or about
2.5 times larger than your body copy.
18. Use color to grab
attention.
67% of people say black is the best choice to help them
comprehend the content, but other tints can add some contrast and visual
interest. 67% of your readers say black headlines help them
easily comprehend your message.
That study covered
by Cutting Edge PR found 17% of people like bright colored headlines and
another 52% say dark colored headlines make for good comprehension.
19. Align your headlines for
the biggest impact.
Centered headlines are most
powerful visually; left-centered are more conservative and formal. Avoid
justifying headline type—it can lead to bad lettering.
Polish Your Headline With
Google
Use Google’s related search
terms and advanced search options to see what kind of headlines people look
for.
Google’s auto-fill option
will give you an idea on how to structure your headline so it corresponds with
the actual search terms used by Google users. That automatically improves
the chances of your post rising straight to the top of the search ranking. Here’s
how to write a headline using Google and its tools:
20. Find words your readers
are looking for with the Keyword Planner.
Use Google Keyword
Planner to understand what search terms your target audiences look
for.
21. Try suggested search.
Just type the first words of
your headline to see whether the auto-fill suggestions are similar to it.
22. Look for related search
terms.
This list appears at the
bottom of your search page and shows you what terms are related to the one
you typed. That feature helps people shake up their searches to find
relevant and related information.
23. Narrow your search
results.
Google Advanced Search will help you to narrow down your search
results to see trends for a given region, language, and time frame.
24. Research dynamic keyword
insertion.
Explore dynamic keyword
insertion (DKI). Check high impression DKI ads that at the same time have a low
click-through rate and avoid using those phrases in your headlines.
Clarity Is Appreciated
Readers prefer explicit
headlines that clearly state what they’re going to get from reading the post.
Headlines featuring numbers—used extensively by a viral content platform,
BuzzFeed—appeal to 34% of readers.
List posts also get some of the most shares of any content
type. With that in mind, here is how to write a headline with clarity:
25. We like it when you
address us.Address your reader as ‘you’. This simply grabs your reader’s attention and helps them relate the headline to their personal experience.
26. Promise a solution to
a problem.
Use ‘that, will ’,‘ to and ‘so
in your headlines. This kind of headline already promises a certain value to be
taken from reading the post. Think about how powerful these headlines sound:
27. Help your readers see
their future.
Think about this headline for
a minute: ‘How To Do ___ That Will Help You ___’.
That headline—and others like
it—clearly states the purpose of the post and boosts its accuracy in tackling
one specific action or problem.
28. Don’t joke around (at
least not yet).
Like avoiding ambiguity, avoid
puns or jokes. Your headline must be understandable outside of its context.
29. Avoid passive voice.
Use active instead of passive
voice. Active is easier to understand when scanning for interesting headlines.
Know Your Competition
If you’ve ever wondered how
much content is created daily, here’s your answer: According to A Day in the
Internet infographic by MBA Online, 2 million new blog posts, 294 billion emails, and 864,000
hours of videos are uploaded to the Internet every single day.
This means that you’re
competing against lots of content. Being aware of such a degree of competition
should only help you to work harder on your headlines and make them stand out
from the crowd.
Here’s how to make sure your
headlines are better than those of your competition:
30. Differentiate your
headlines from the competition.
Research what your competitors
are doing. Identify the expressions, keywords, and phrases your competitors use
in their content.
From there, you will
understand how to make your headlines stand out. For example, review your
competition quickly for the 29 previous points (skim through their headlines
with this information in mind), then brainstorm
how to write headlines that will trump theirs.
31. Publish headlines
that brand your content.
Make it easy for searchers to
identify key differences between your content and the stuff other people
publish—otherwise you risk inducing a choice fatigue. If you feel like your
headlines sound exactly what may publish on a competitor’s site, write 25
headlines and choose one with a unique angle.
Imagine the possibilities if a
reader could read your headline and know it’s your content just by its tone.
32. Test new headline ideas.
Be creative! Don’t be afraid
of testing new content on your audience. Even if your headline doesn’t bring a
lot of traffic, you’ll get 5 new ideas on what might.
33. Recycle your old
ideas with new headlines and angles.
Recycle your content.
A great evergreen piece of content can be easily recycled under a
different headline based on thorough research meant to broaden the gap between
you and your competition.
Source: Kelly Smith
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