How to write an effective headline

Writing a good and well thought out headline is vital for catching the eye of your audience. With this being the case, it is also important to understand that headlines should include keywords for SEO. The ultimate goal you should find yourself working towards is making your headline extremely clickable.

“Five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” — David Ogilvy

In the list below there are some major points to remember for when you are creating your perfect headline:

1. Use specific numbers/digits & data in your headline – it is often much more attractive to someone when headlines contain numbers. It is a sign of simplicity showing that it is easy to follow and people who click on it will not get lost. For example, saying “the 10 best ways….” Is significantly better than saying “the ten best ways….”.
2. Write more headlines – this may come across as an obvious tip but is still very important. Repetition and practice in writing headlines with guidance provided will certainly improve your headlines.
3. Teaching people in your headline – writing a headline that is expressing how someone could learn a new skill is a very effective way of getting more clicks. The use of things like “a beginners guide” or “In 5 minutes learns how to”
4. Write headlines that are easy to understand – the moment a potential reader stumbles on your web page from anywhere, they should not need any help to figure out what you’re talking about.
5. Create a sense of urgency with immediate effect – the reality for most people is that they don’t want to hang around and wait. Therefore, adding words like right now, today, immediately etc to your headline will attract people to wanting to know how they can gain something so quickly from you
6. What is in it for the customer? – you have to remember that it is always important to put yourself in the shoes of your customer and think is there enough benefit that you could receive from what you are offering. A good approach to overcoming this would be through emotional words
7. The use of adjectives – adding interesting adjectives to your headline may make a more enjoyable read to your audience as well as filling them with more intrigue. For example, “5 effective ways…” sounds a lot better than “5 ways…”
8. Remember SHINE – Specificity – Make sure you are being specific enough so that there is a level of originality and so there is no uncertainty to what you are. Helpfulness – people appreciate how much you are willing to help them so including this in your headline will make a positive impact. Immediacy – making sure what you are offering in your headline expresses that people don’t have to wait around to find out what is on offer from you. Newsworthiness – it is important to think to yourself whether your headline will be good enough to be reported on after success from increased traffic. Entertainment value – one of the most important things is making sure it is engaging. You want your headline to set the reader up with excitement and be filled with a certain level of desire to read what you have to say.
9. Be very specific – the web is very saturated and so there will be headlines that are very similar to others. It is important to make sure you are as unique as possible with your headline. A good example to look for inspiration from is Neil Patel. He creates very specific headlines that are also engaging and intriguing.
10. Measure your headline success – it is very important to note what headlines are performing well. You can compare and contrast between another that may have not performed as good and see what parts you included were the difference

If you are someone who is interested in guest blogging then it is recommended for you to look at how to create the perfect headline in depth and then come on over to a post all about the 11 benefits of guest blogging. As well as this, be sure to check out our post on building your brand through content. This post provides you with what you need to know after executing your headline for your content.

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