Understanding crafting a captivating headline is crucial for creating compelling content that resonates with your audience. Your headline serves as the initial engagement point for readers, drawing them into your writing. It’s pivotal to grasp the essence of composing a headline that grabs attention and piques curiosity, compelling readers to delve deeper into your article.
Whether you’re penning a blog post, an eBook, or a white paper, a well-crafted headline can increase your content’s traffic. Conversely, a lackluster headline may prompt visitors to swiftly navigate away from your page in search of more enticing material.
As evident, the headline stands as a cornerstone of any written piece you produce. The encouraging news is that, with practice, you can master crafting engaging headlines that enhance clicks and draw in more interested readers.
Examples of Winning Headlines
In our quest for the perfect headline, we came across 5 categories of headlines that tend to perform well:
Making a promise
For example: “Do your Business Accounts Faster with this Simple Formula.”
Drawing a picture
For example: “Design Visuals that Will Turn Heads“
Stating a fact
For example: “This is the Best Diet for your Dog, According to Veterinarians.”
Asking a question
For example: “Have you Heard what Carrots can Do for your Skin?”
Disputing common knowledge
For example: “Here’s why Drinking Milk is Bad for You.”
Before we move on, all the above headlines are purely hypothetical. We don’t believe milk is terrible for you, so don’t quote us.
How to Write a Headline That Will Capture Attention
1) Do Your Research
You must first know what you’re writing about to write an engaging headline. Your topic should appeal to readers, so knowing what they want is essential.
Before crafting your headline, consider doing some preliminary research to understand your target audience’s pain points. Understanding their needs better will guide you in writing a headline that resonates with them.
Kick off your research by exploring what prompts people to turn to Google. What specific queries do they type when seeking assistance in your niche? By analyzing prevalent keywords, you can uncover the topics your audience is eager to explore.
Feeling lost? Start typing your chosen keyword into Google’s search bar and observe the suggestions before hitting “search.”
Alternatively, leverage tools like Google Trends to gauge the popularity of various keywords. This resource offers insights into trending terms and related search queries, shedding light on what topics currently capture audience interest.
For example, here’s what appears when I use “DIY Decor” as a search term. As you can see, this search term is not as popular as in November. You can also see that Google Trends has suggested some related search terms, which I can compare with my original search term.
“DIY Ghost Decor” is an even less popular search term than “DIY Decor” right now. This is valid since this search term would’ve been popular around Halloween, not in the middle of March. Let’s try one more.
As expected, “Easter Decor” far outperforms “DIY Decor” as a search term at this point in the year. So, writing about Easter decor would be a great idea if you were a company that sells home decor accessories and runs a blog. As before, Google Trends has listed related search queries and their popularity. These queries can help you refine your headline to make it more focused.
2) Know the Ideal Length of a Headline
Once you have an idea of your headline, you must know how long the most impactful headlines are. According to Kissmetrics research, people only process the first three words and the last three words of a headline.
For this reason, keeping your headline to 6 words long makes it easy to digest. If you need to write more than 6 words, you shouldn’t exceed 10 words. If you write those 10 words, you must make the first and last 3 words good because they will have the most impact.
Likewise, your headline should be 50-60 characters long. Packing too many characters into your headline will make it chopped in SERPs. Few people will click on your search result if your headline is incomplete.
3) Brainstorm a Selection of Headlines
Crafting the perfect headline isn’t an instant task; it requires patience and time. Rather than hastily settling on the first headline that comes to mind, it’s crucial to give yourself room to explore. Take a moment to brainstorm at least three different headlines, allowing yourself to uncover the one that truly captivates.
Some well-known blogs, such as Upworthy, go even further by generating a whopping 25 headlines. While it might seem excessive, this method increases the chances of discovering a gem. Once you’ve compiled your list, begin the process of elimination, discarding those that don’t quite hit the mark. With this approach, selecting the winning headline becomes straightforward, setting the stage for success.
4) Get to the Point
A good headline gets straight to the point rather than beating about the bush. Many brands make the mistake of crafting vague headlines because they believe the mystery will draw readers in. On the contrary, readers who can’t make heads or tails of what your article is about are unlikely to stick around and find out.
Be direct so that people can see the value in your article immediately. Including keywords in your headline is one way to immediately communicate value to your reader.
5) Size Your Headline to Stand Out
When you want your headline to grab attention, make sure it’s in a larger font than the rest of your text. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to overlook details like font size when rushing to meet a deadline.
Luckily, many content editors come with pre-set heading sizes that you can apply. If yours doesn’t have this feature, adjust the size manually to ensure your headline gets the attention it deserves.
6) Use Visually Impactful Alignment
The way you align your headline also determines how prominent it is to the reader’s eye. Centering your headline will have the most impact, while a left-aligned headline seems more formal. Whatever you do, don’t justify your headline, as this leads to imbalanced spacing.
7) Write for SEO
When writing your headline, it would be best to appeal to human readers and search engines. Search engines also “read” your article to categorize it properly. For this reason, you need to optimize your headline to help the search engines understand your content.
As you’re writing for SEO, including the keyword in the title is essential. Moreover, you should include it as close to the beginning as possible. Ensure your headline makes logical sense, as you’re also trying to attract human readers.
Including your keyword in the headline will help search engines understand and include your article in the correct SERPs.
8) Use “You”
Addressing your reader directly is a good strategy if you want your headline to grab their attention. Instead of speaking abstractly, say “you.” For example, in the titles we listed previously, we said “Do your Business Accounts Faster,” when we could just as quickly have said “Do Business Accounts Faster.”
Adding the extra word – “you” – is worth it because it helps you develop a more personal headline that will stand out in SERPs.
9) Highlight the Value
Regardless of the headline style you choose, it’s essential to highlight the value you’re offering the reader. This is an excellent way to convince them that your article is worth reading.
You can do this by discussing a problem that your article solves. For example, you could mention “The Best Way to ABCD.” You can also present your headline as advice or mention interesting research data within your article. Finally, you can promise to teach the reader something useful.
10) Use Statistics
Including statistics in your headline will pique your reader’s curiosity, especially if it’s a surprising statistic. Include the figures as close to the beginning of your headline as possible so that it grabs a reader’s attention right away.
11) Use Numbers
Our brains are attracted to numbers, so adding numbers to the beginning of your headline is a surefire way to stop someone in their tracks. Numbers are especially effective if you are writing a “how-to” article. Remember to use digits instead of words to help your numbers stand out more.
12) Avoid Clickbait
As a content creator, the last thing you want is to earn a reputation for being pretentious or making exaggerated claims. This is precisely what clickbait will do to you, so steer clear.
All a reader needs to do is click on your grandiose headline, only to discover that you’ve misled them with clickbait. This kind of dishonesty will cost you a reader’s trust. This person is unlikely to click on any of your headlines in the future, no matter how interesting they seem.
13) Use Interesting Words
Headlines containing “X Tips for ABCD” are a dime a dozen. Instead of promising your reader some tips, use a less common word. For example, you can offer “X Secrets for ABCD” or “X Reasons to ABCD.”
Less commonly used words will help you stand out from the crowd.
14) Check Your Competitors Out
You shouldn’t settle on a headline before you’ve checked your competitors out and seen what kind of headlines they’re using for your chosen topic. Having an idea of what your competitors are doing will give you a good idea of how to write a headline that stands out.
15) Do A/B Testing
There is no single magical solution to writing headlines that stand out. Ultimately, it would be best to experiment with several strategies until you find one that works for your audience.
You can test your headlines in two ways:
a) Twitter
Once you’ve published your article, you can choose your two most potent headlines. Use them separately to promote your article and see which headline gets more clicks.
b) Email Marketing
Again, once your article is published, please send it to your mailing list using both headlines. Divide the people on your mailing list by half, and send the article to those people using one headline. Send the other half of your mailing list the other headline. Whichever headline gets more engagement should give you an idea of how to craft your headlines in the future. That’s email marketing made easy.
As you can see, learning how to write a headline that will stop people in their tracks is an essential part of content marketing for your brand. Follow the tips above and quickly write outstanding headlines.