Do Your Headlines Suck?

You know it as well as anyone, headlines are what drive readers to click on your posts. Yes, your content is important too, but it is your headlines that actually attract readers. Your post headlines are the number one thing that will drive traffic to your sites and make audiences really read your posts.

So, do your headlines suck? Do you need some guidance on how to write better headlines for your posts? Well, look no further than right here to gain insights on how to write better headlines.

Nothing is ever perfect

One thing is for sure, headlines are never perfect. What worked today, may not work tomorrow to make a post go viral.

But, keep your head held high, ponder your audience before writing your title, keep it short, stand out and always brainstorm before making a final decision on your title.

Ways to improve your headlines

For successful headlines, writers should create a sense of urgency, be specific, provide unique value to readers, make it useful and on occasion, use provocative language to get noticed.

Other tried and true methods of writing headlines are as follows:

• Use numbered lists-especially odd numbers (11 ways to improve your blogs.)
• Reasons Why Posts (Why you should be using video marketing.)
• Use digits instead of words
• Place numbers at the start of the headline
• How-To Posts (How to improve your blog traffic.)
• Create a sense of urgency by adding words like ‘now’ or ‘today’ (5 ways to increase your website traffic today.)
• Use as few words as possible
• News headlines (Announcing marketing conference this June.)
• Ask a question (Do your headlines suck?)
• Focus on keywords
• Use fun and creative adjectives such as ‘surprising’ or ‘essential’
• Practice, practice, and then practice some more.

It’s all in the wording

Write headlines that speak to audiences desires and earn their trust. Provide audiences with the information that they have been longing for or losing sleep over. Make yourself valuable by being helpful and making it obvious to readers why they should read your post. Your headlines should appeal to reader’s emotions by achieving pleasure and avoiding pain. But most of all, write a killer headline and then deliver on all promises you made to the reader.

Sources
Digital Information World. (2013, October 10). How to Attract More Visitors By Writing Killer Blog Titles. Retrieved from Digital Information World: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2013/10/how-to-attract-more-visitors-by-writing.html

Feldman Creative. (2014, June 4). Your Cheat Sheet for Writing Headlines. Retrieved from Feldman Creative: http://www.slideshare.net/barryjfeldman/writing-headlines-infographic?sf3176130=1&utm_content=buffer1ab1c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Smarty, A. (2014, August 11). How to (Try to) Write a Perfect Headline. Retrieved from Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog: http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/content/try-write-perfect-headline/

Taylor, M. (2014, March 19). 19 Effortless Ways to Write Amazing Headlines. Retrieved from Venture Harbour: https://www.ventureharbour.com/writing-great-headlines/