All experienced writers know how to write a good headline. They will agree to the point that half the battle of keeping the users engaged is won if you can get their attention with a catchy heading for your blog. We all heard, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but here, my dear friends, your readers will judge you by what you have on your cover. It has been analyzed that most people just read the blog headlines and then get to read the entire article if they find the heading of their interest else. Then, that article just gets dropped. We are sure you would certainly not want that to happen to you as well. As an attractive headline, it forms an integral part of every blog post. If you’re able to learn how to come up with a title, half of your work is done simply by looking at your blog’s headline, and visitors will go through everything that’s been published by you and will likely return to your site frequently. Since the blog headline is the first thing your visitors will notice about your site, it’s crucial to ensure the same is drafted wisely. It would help if you were extra careful in choosing the best blog headlines, as it would decide the visitor count for your site.
Importance of Catchy Headlines
Before you get into how to make a good title for a blog post, know the importance of good headlines.
Gets the reader’s attention
Titles can remarkably grip the attention of those who follow one’s blog through RSS feeds in news aggregators. Readers who use news aggregators tend to scan the titles first (to find exciting content) before reading the entire post.
Works well for social bookmarking websites
Like how it gets RSS readers’ attention, the same things apply to various social bookmarking websites, just like reddit.com. These websites possess the good potential to give your site several possible visitors, primarily based on the title of your post.
Promotes better interactions
Good headlines could greatly impact the interactions of your loyal readers on your website. One of the best ways to make a web user intrigued by your website is by capturing their attention through great headlines on your website’s content.
It offers further benefits for SEO
Though several factors contribute to how search engines rank a page, one of the most influential factors on a website is the impressive title of the page’s content.
15 Tips to Write Best Blog Headlines
You have all your articles well-documented and informative, yet you fail to get enough users to read them. Have you ever thought about what possibly can be the reasons behind it? Is it anything to do with your blog post heading? How to make a good title for your blog post? Maybe your readers can not get hooked up to the entire article because your heading is not good enough, and hence it doesn’t give enough interest to your readers to get more of it. We often fail to focus on this critical aspect of writing blogs and keep searching for solutions here and there. We suggest you carefully analyze your headings the next time you write a blog. Focus and invest maximum time to write better headlines that instantly grabbing the reader’s attention. Even the most innovative and informative articles fail to impress the readers because they have weak headlines. Now, you must think of “how to write a good headline” that quickly catches your attention. Here are some of the ways that can help you to understand the basics and help you with many possible ways with which you can write better headlines for your blog. Reading this blog will allow you to grab the best tips that can be followed for writing great headlines for your blog posts. So, let me walk you through these tips on how to make a good title, and hopefully, you’ll enjoy each tip as it’s being explained in this write-up. First, let’s look at how to make a title for your blog post.
1. Grab an idea from tabloid headlines
Going through popular tabloids will allow you to get headline ideas that suit your blog. Study the headlines covered in popular magazines/journals, and you’ll start noticing the familiar words, phrases, and topics that can be used effectively in drafting the best blog headlines. Save yourself from the hassles of guessing and testing and start imitating killer headlines available in famous tabloids and celebrity magazines. Here’s an example of a journal heading I’ve reframed into a blog headline: Marriage Tell-All: The Shocking facts behind marriage”. “Blog Marketing Tell All: The Shocking Reasons Your blog isn’t getting visitors.”
2. Try insulting headlines
Let’s accept it, guys! Insulting headlines work wonders for your blogging website. A headline that slaps the reader’s ego is an effective tool for retaining their attention. You only need to ensure that you do not overuse these insult headlines because they may alienate your blog visitors, driving them away from your site. Here are a few examples of blog headings that have been created, keeping the EGO blaster aspect in mind: “10 Reasons your Online Marketing Campaign sucks”. “6 reasons no one is reading your Tweets”.
3. Try issue-resolved headlines
Present your headings, so the readers find it as if it is solving some of their problems rather than telling them something. Users will love to read it out if it targets any of their problem-solving areas. Make it helpful. Although this headline is a bit challenging to pull off, if done properly, it can help you drive good traffic to your blog. To come up with an “Issue Resolved” headline, all you need to do is identify the problem that’s been bothering your readers and tell them that your blog post will offer a proven solution for it. Here are a few examples of blog headlines created after keeping the “Issue Resolved” aspect in mind:
How to use Online Marketing for your business benefit? How to set up your blog in just 30 minutes?
4. Try instant gratification headlines
Instant gratification has always worked best for gathering the attention of blog readers. Including words such as “in just six days,” “as early as TODAY,” “instant,” “definite,” etc. within blog headlines has always impressed visitors and played a crucial role in keeping them engaged with the website. Since people are more interested in grabbing faster solutions to their problems, using such words in blog headlines will turn advantageous, despite the minimal effort.
5. Try breaking news headlines
It is indeed one of the most effective headlines for a blog post. Irrespective of all the categories your blog contains, it’s pretty simple to find hot topics that are capable of making many eyebrows raise. You may include the “Breaking News” headlines for your blog and keep readers engaged on your site. Internet users are always on the lookout for blogs/articles that render information about all the latest happenings in specific fields of work. Choosing a “Breaking News” headline for your blog will help you get noticed over the web.
6. Use how-to headlines
Readers must be able to see the value of reading your post through your headlines. The benefits must be clearly and directly shown. Despite various skepticism, ‘how-to’ headlines always work well as they are clearer to understand, and the reader may instantly see the benefits gained from reading through the article. Your headline must hold something that could convey a distinct benefit. It will be ideal if you can complement your headline with added emotions like excitement, humor, or even drama, but don’t go too far, or you’ll lose credibility. Most individuals are not into exaggerated claims; thus, ensure that your headline is creative and believable.
7. Try to bring prompt curiosity
Questions on the headline can be practical so long as they won’t make the reader answer ‘no.’ Also, if you seem to answer the question in your headline, the reader will find no point in reading your content entirely. What’s good about creating awesome headlines with questions is that it triggers tension. Readers get curious, and they’ll read the whole article to find the answer to the question posed.
8. Use new ideas; people are bored with cliche
Always remember to use new ideas. No one likes it if they are served anything old or monotonous. The same is the case with the readers. If you present them with the same boring ideas, you will sooner or later start losing them. Thus, it is essential to come up with new ideas every time so that the users feel engaged.
9. Users look for references
We all need references at some time or the other. Whenever you feel stuck or cannot get any innovative heading, you can use it to get an idea and motivation. And, of course, referring to a swipe file is not cheating.
10. Numbers hit the user’s mind
It has been seen that the human mind responds more quickly to numbers. Use this trick and include numbers in your headings so that it can attract many users to it. An added help for you could be that it is believed that odd numbers play better than even ones. Headlines with numbers usually perform better when compared to other styles of writing better headlines. A post on a ‘list-type’ is typically easy to read, which is crucial in today’s hectic environments. Here’s the thing: you may use low numbers to show how concise your article is or a high number to demonstrate how comprehensive the content is. However, please do not get too high as it will appear too strenuous to read or too low to look useless. Also, odd numbers, primarily the number seven (7), work fine in powerful headlines. Another thing, have it in a numerical figure rather than spelled out. Again, it goes well for the readers and takes up lesser space.
11. Avoid positive superlatives
In contrast to the common belief about their extensive usage in headlines, positive superlatives (i.e., best, always) seem ineffective for the readers. The data given by outbrain.com shows that the average click-through rate on headlines that have negative superlatives (i.e., “never” or “worst”) was a staggering 63% higher than their positive counterparts. Further, the same study shows that blog headlines that contain positive superlatives performed 29% poorer than those that don’t have any superlatives in them. It shows that the overuse of positive superlatives in various marketing contents before (or even at present) has led to scenarios like being ignored and doubted.
12. Put extra adjectives and power words
Adjectives, compared to superlatives, can pique further interest if utilized correctly. You can incorporate effective adjectives such as beautiful, brilliant, helpful, and many others. These words can help grab readers’ attention and sufficiently intrigue them to read further. Powerful words will also help grab users’ attention and motivate them to continue reading. For example, you can use powerful words like ‘you, free, new, or because’ copywriters from around the globe love them so much that they have been used in powerful headlines for decades without even losing a bit of their essence.
13. May use positive words
It is so refreshing if you feel positive about life and other things. You are always charged up to deliver more when you feel positive. Right? Even your users can sense that positivity when given. So use more positive words in your blog headlines and see the difference in the number of people liking your blog.
14. Get favors from the negative words
Using negative words like Never, Don’t Stop, Avoid, etc., seems a good idea when used in the headings. These words target the emotion of fear in humans, and they tend to get hooked up with the content to satisfy their curiosity about the matter.
15. Use headline analyzer tools
Using headline analyzer tools in crafting efficient and best blog headlines is undoubtedly an ideal principle. You’ll get a few blog headline variations for your articles and be able to test their efficiency. We use a few free headline analyzer tools to test our headlines. Headline analyzer tools rate your headline on different parameters and show the headline’s score. In addition to giving a score, it will also provide essential suggestions to help improve your blog headlines.
Summing Up
So, these were the tips for writing the best blog headlines, which, if followed seriously, can allow you to write an impressive headline for your blog post and help you attain maximum readership. If you want to add something to the above tips, please don’t hesitate to use the comments box below.
