Ever wish you could learn the secret to writing attention-grabbing headlines? You know, forget the analytics and just go straight to what works?
The harsh reality is that visitors often don’t finish reading the blog piece or article that brought them to your site in the first place. Why? Online readers have become expert scanners. In 10 to 20 seconds of viewing your content they will make a judgment call reminiscent of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” If your headline doesn’t grab the audience, they go.
According to The Nielsen Norman Group, the vast majority of your visitors will make a judgment within 10 to 20 seconds of opening your content whether they should read more – or whether they should leave.
Killer headlines that demand attention in 4 steps
To hook readers and ensure they stay to read your content, follow these four simple steps to craft headlines that captivate:
- Write the piece. Do not worry about the headline yet.
- When your draft is done, think about what the piece offers. Visitors will read content if there’s a benefit. What is the reader’s benefit? Develop a headline that answers the question. A strong headline example that answers the benefit question is: How to Set Goals You will Actually Achieve.
- Use power words such as victory, hidden, triumph, and controversial. Use them to create emotion or curiosity in the reader. The reader cannot help being intrigued. The headline example, ‘Are You Making These 7 Mistakes With Your About Page?’ does just that.
- If you can work in surprise, emotion, and personality into the headline, all the better.
You’re one webinar away from creating supercharged headlines
Jon Morrow, Associate Editor of Copyblogger and the creator of BoostBlogTraffic.com, held a webinar in November about how to write irresistible headline. Morrow is a master of headline writing. He said during a recent interview, “To most bloggers, headlines are an afterthought, something to slap on the post before publishing it, thinking it will have little or no impact on the popularity of the post. Epic mistake. The difference between a good headline and a bad headline is often thousands or even tens of thousands of visitors.” Every blogger or copywriter needs to put a lot more thought into their headlines than they do, and the payoff is huge, Morrow says.
We highly recommend watching Morrow’s webinar (below). It’s overflowing with valuable tips certain to improve your headline writing.
Do your blog posts or articles fall flat? Have you changed a headline and thereby attracted more visitors? Watch the webinar, try the techniques, and tell us your thoughts.
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