How to Write Great Headlines
By: Melanie Fine
Tags: Content Marketing, Content Marketing Agency, Content Strategy, Headlines

How to Write Great Headlines

I’m running a mini-experiment in which you are the subject. Bear with me — you’re not lab rat or anything like that. Rather you’re a reader. And I want to test out which of the following headlines piques your interest the most.

First off, I started this article with the title “How to write great headlines.” I imagine that you only opened the article if you were interested in writing great headlines, or, finding out what goes into a great headline.

Because, let’s face it if you’re going to spend time or money or both writing content, you want content that your readers are going to read. The first step to getting your readers to read your content is to draft a click-worthy headline.

So, let’s see if I can improve on my email title a bit.

“How to” is a great way to start a blog or article. It implies that, in the article, the reader will learn the “how-to” of writing a great headline.

Some say that adding numbers to headlines works even better, by concretizing (is that even a word?) the promise. We could replace the “how-to” with “3 Ways to Write Great Headlines,” or “The 3 Essential Parts of a Great Headline,” or “Every Great Headline Needs These 3 Things.”

Every Great Headline Needs These 3 Things

By including numbers in the title, I give you a very concrete promise. Not only am I going to teach you how to write a great headline, but it only takes 3 steps — or 5 or 8, or whichever number you choose.

Some people will say that unusual numbers work better than your traditional 3, 5 or 10. For example, if I were to rewrite the title as:

Every Great Headline Needs These 4 Things

It makes it more plausible that every headline should have each of these 4 things, not 2, 3 or even 5 things.

Before I continue, let’s talk about the word “things.” NEVER use “things.” Surely I can come up with a better and more appropriate noun, such as components or parts. I looked for synonyms at thesaurus.com and came up with “element.” Now the title becomes:

Every Great Headline Needs These 4 Elements

Adjective choice is also very important. If I can find a better word for “things,” I surely can come up with a better word for “great.” Since the purpose of writing a headline is to get your readers to read your content, how about using a word like “irresistible?” After all, I want my headlines to be so irresistible that my readers will consume the content. The headline now becomes:

Every Irresistible Headline Needs These 4 Elements

There’s also talk among content marketers about headline length. Hubspot chimed in this issue, citing the following data and results:

1. Headlines within 70 characters won’t get cut off in search engine results.

2. Headlines that are between 8–12 words get the most Twitter shares.

3. Headlines that are between 12–14 words get the most Facebook likes.

4. Content Marketing Institute says that 8-word headlines get a 21% higher click-through rate.

The title “Every Irresistible Headline Needs These 4 Elements” contains 7 words and 50 characters.

(By the way, I use https://wordcounter.net/ to count my words and characters).

It looks like we need another word, or two.

So let me change it up a bit:

Include These 4 Elements to Write Irresistible Headlines

I think, by doing so, I’ve strengthened the call-to-action by speaking directly to the reader who wants to write great headlines. Oops, I mean — IRRESISTIBLE headlines.

Which do you prefer?

How to Write Great Headlines

How to Write Irresistible Headlines

Every Great Headline Needs These 3 Elements

Every Irresistible Headline Needs These 4 Elements

Include These 4 Elements to Write Irresistible Headlines

Or, can you write me a better one?

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