There have undoubtedly been many published blog posts and articles that had some great content, yet were limited in their impact by having a bland title or headline. You need to put as much effort into creating an eye-catching title as you would by generating excellent content.
Why a Good Title/Headline Matters
Your title is usually a reader or customer’s first interaction with your brand or whatever it is you are offering. Not only is it your first chance to catch the audience’s attention, it may be your only chance. If your headline does not convey something of value to the reader/consumer, they will not click on it and engage with your article. In the era of clickbait, you and your competition are trying to attract the reader. A boring title alone could easily send the reader right to a competitor’s more enticing link. This article offers tips to create those effective headlines, and some tactics to avoid.
Writing Stimulating Headlines
Some valuable tips for you:
1) Begin with a Working Title – Begin with a topic, for example, “eating healthy”. From that, you can come up with a working (but not yet perfect) title such as “Almonds, Cashews and Dates Taste Good and Deliver Health Benefits”.
2) Make the Headline Honest
Your headline has to be something your content can deliver on. “15 Companies that Tripled their Profits from 2015 to 2016” is no good if you cannot actually find those companies. Adding a bracketed clarification to the headline can help ensure its accuracy. Examples are: [Infographic], [Webinar], and [Whitepaper]. HubSpot has found that headlines with this clarification performed 38 percent better than headlines without clarification.
3) Make the Headline Eye-Grabbing
If you know your buyers’ personas, try doing things such as using: a. Alliteration (The Magic of Mushrooms) b. Strong language—such as “dazzling” or even negative ones such as “Leaders People Hate” c. Make the value clear—it was found that adding [Template] to a title was very effective for click-through-rate (CTR) d. Focus on the Who’s and not the Why’s—in fact, headlines which included the word “who” resulted in a 22 percent higher CTR. e. Make it visual—if your article has visuals, include the word “photo(s)” in the title—this improves the performance of the headline by 37 percent.
4) Keep the Headline Short
If you keep the title under 70 characters, it will not be cut off in search engine results. 12 to 14-word headlines received the most Facebook “likes”. Headlines with 8 to 12 words got the most Twitter shares. According to Outbrain, eight-word headlines have a 21 percent higher CTR.
5) Optimize for Search and Social
Come up with keywords and put them near the beginning of the title. To make your headlines tweetable, keep them in the 120 to 130 character range.
6) Brainstorm Headlines with Another Person
Given that the title is so important, it can really help to have a back and forth with another person to refine it.
Headline Strategies to AVOID
· Using “how to”
· Using “easy”
· Using superlatives such as “best” or “always”
· Using “you”, “your”, and “you’re”
· Using “need” or “now”
Using words such as “magic”, “cure”, “free”, “trick” “credit” and“secret” attract spam filters—readers are savvier now.
Originally published on LinkedIn. Republished with permission.
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
—
Want to test your new-found skills and submit a post to The Good Men Project? Submit here:
