Think of headlines as a short presentation of your content to the audience. Your goal is to capture the reader’s attention with your blog title and keep their interest in the article and your brand. That’s how you know you’ve done a good job!
Are you ready to learn the basics of writing catchy titles? Here are our top tips:
What Makes a Good Headline?
Writing headlines could be tricky. Bad headlines sound boring or confusing. These titles are not catchy enough to bring you leads or even rank you among the top search results. On the other side, a good headline is easy-to-read, it intrigues and engages website visitors, and boosts your blog’s SEO score.
So we are here to answer the important questions:
What is the structure of a good headline?
What makes a title readable?
How to optimize headlines?
Which tools can help you generate better headlines?
Headline Structure
The audience tends to quickly scan headlines and make up their mind about clicking on blogs, in less than a second. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the best headlines consist of questions and trigger words.
Most readers prefer structured listicles that are easy to read and comprehend, like 1-2-3. That being said, adding numbers to article titles is highly encouraged.
Good headlines are bold, and have a lot of things in common - they provoke, convey needs, make promises, and create urgency to take action.
The perfect length of a blog article title is about 6-12 words, 30-80 characters.
The main keyword/phrase should always be included in the headline.
Make sure your headlines are clear and easy to read. Mixing random words and structuring confusing sentences is not going to work. So always brainstorm a few ideas before you settle for a heading.
Helpful Tools for Headline Writing
We want to make the task easier for you. That's why we created a shortlist of software solutions that will help you optimize your titles.
Check out our favorite tools to write headlines that drive clicks:
Writing Catchy Headlines: Quick Game-Changing Tips
Writing better headlines is not that hard. It does take a bit of creativity, brainstorming, and some basic SEO knowledge, but follow our advice and soon enough you will master it.
1. Trigger Words
Power words are essential to affect the audience. They capture a reader’s attention and create an urgency that drives more clicks on your blog posts. Quick tip - make sure you use no more than 1 or 2 emotionally triggering words.
2. Numbers
List posts are a hit! Adding a number in the title ignites huge engagement in online publications. The reason is, listicles provide structured information on a relevant topic.
People love reading them as they can be “scan-read” faster than regular blog articles.
3. Question/Answer
As a good practice in blog post writing, you can either add literal question words in your headline or convince the reader that the article contains an answer they are looking for. (How, Who, Why, Where, When, What, etc.)
4. Know Your Customers
When you write headlines, you should write them for people. So you need to consider important factors such as traffic patterns and client demographics. By knowing where your customers come from, what age group they are in, what devices they use, etc, you can create headlines using words corresponding to their general interests.
5. Be Either Positive or Negative
Neutral intonation will not do anything good for your blog. The sweet spot for catchy headlines is to go either super enthusiastic or deeply negative. Do not hold back from using superlatives like best, worst, greatest, avoid, skip, etc. This type of title heading creates emotional context and triggers basic human curiosity.
6. Bold Statements
Writing catchy titles sometimes requires unconventional practices. So ditch your fear of bold statements and call the reader out with your headline. Get personal, present a problem, and offer a solution. Using this psychological technique you are creating urgency that drives more people to your website.
7. Aim at Unique Headlines
Search algorithms love fresh content with unique catchy headings. Thus be certain your headlines stay original but relevant enough for people to be interested in what you want to share. Stick to this rule and rest assured you will rank higher on search engines and your organic web traffic will increase.
8. Promise and Deliver
The best motive to make a promise with your blog headline is people love educational material. Strive to bring them value. Whether you explain, present alternatives, teach a skill, or anything else - don’t let the audience down and always deliver what has been promised.
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