3 Simple Questions That Help You Write Better Headlines

3 Simple Questions That Help You Write Better Headlines

Reader Comments (36)

  1. Time-saving work day tips faster than a Black Marlin

    Save time with these work day tips faster than a Black Marlin

    You can be faster than a Black Marlin with these work day tips

  2. Hi Stefanie, thanks for the nice tips. In fact, it boosted my power of writing headlines. I’m grateful to all the writers of Copyblogger for publishing quality posts in a regular basis.

    Keep publishing more and more articles so that we can be benefited with those.

    Good Luck

  3. Thanks for another useful, actionable little article! It’s testament to that old adage re: good things coming in small packages. I’m in the process of rewriting a headline and lead right now so this is great timing!!

  4. Hi! I’m a newbie with blogging and this is really helpful. I do not think too much with a headline but now I realized the importance of it. Thanks for the tips!

  5. The final headline is indeed intriguing, informative, has got a number in it and offers a solid value proposition. But don’t you think the sheer length of it would deter a segment of the audience? The “low-attention span” factor could be a possible turn off for a select few.

    • That’s a great point! If you’re concerned about the length, you can keep fine-tuning until you get the best version for your audience and website. That’s a fun part of this exercise … it looks like other people in the comments are experimenting with their own versions too. 🙂

    • Yes! I am a strong believer in using action verbs. I have been spending a lot more time on my headlines and I am really seeing strong results.

  6. Thank you for yet another useful article. I’ve shared this with my team. Keeping our reader’s needs front-and-center always helps us focus on the benefits.

  7. Hey Stefanie,

    I would definitely love the final headline because, it has every thing that can force someone to go even further and click to open the post. The only thing that I want to convince here is; don’t you think the title length is too much and it would not be readable for Google in terms of SEO.
    Either way, Its a nice write up.
    Thanks for sharing!
    Riyaz

  8. This is truly a helpful post for people like my who most of time end up writing a headline in the same tone. My headlines are either questions or tips with the simple words like “How to beat procrastination for a more productive day?”

    I also try to check the score at different tools like Coschedule headline anlayzer, and usually get score between 55 to 70.

  9. Once again awesome article..Headlines is very important. As I am mostly click on catchy headlines that are related to my search.

  10. Headline is an awesome tool for almost all but when you write for many people, you should be a lazer and send correct message in seconds. I like make short a/b test headlines using facebook ads with Adespresso. In 3 hours max I can see the best performace in my headlines previously to publish.

  11. Hey Stefanie,

    I am enjoying the articles more and more here. I think one thing you missed (and may be I would like to add it in a blog post later 😉 is the online headlines suggestion tools which are available freely. These tools won’t of course replace a human completely, but I have seen that their suggestions can bring up words which otherwise generally do not come to our mind easily.

    Regards
    Sai

  12. Catchy Headlines plays a very important role in getting CTR. Thanks for tutorial on writing better headlines. I will be waiting for your new post.

  13. I agree with Riyaz that the headline in this example is too long, so I appreciate your comment to keep tweaking it for your audience. It goes to show that everyone, and every audience, is different. Thanks for sharing your tips and suggestions.

  14. Hi Stephanie, I do wake up to read content – LOL. I do but anyways I LOVE your analogy with the marine biologists. That tip was very helpful. Thank you! I am always working on making better headlines along with the content.

  15. A catchy headlines is extremely important to capture audiences attention. Thank you for these tips.

  16. Hi Stephanie,
    I could totally get point 1 and point 2. But when it comes to point 3, I felt like I got lost in a maze.
    The article started with How to stop procrastination keeping Marine Biologists in mind.
    But, when it ended in Step 3, the focus word stop procrastination is gone.

    From an SEO standpoint, this may not look good, if my focus keyword was how to stop procrastination.

    My Doubt is, should I ignore the focus word while thinking about Step 3, ie: saying how the content is special?

    • Hi Vaishak,

      Thanks for your great question about how these steps relate to SEO.

      If your focus keyword is “beat procrastination,” you have a couple of options.

      First, you might want to use this version for your SEO title:

      10 Tips to Beat Procrastination Faster than a Black Marlin

      And then use the more detailed version as the headline for your post — the one that your subscribers will see (and hopefully share):

      10 Time-Saving Tips to Zip Through Your Work Day Faster than a Black Marlin

      That way, the post satisfies your SEO needs and you have a more custom headline for your community to see and share.

      Or, you could get more creative in step 3 and craft a custom headline that also works for SEO. Something like:

      Beat Procrastination Faster than a Black Marlin: 10 Time-Saving Tips to Zip Through Your Work Day

      I hope that helps!

  17. Great blog post Stefanie and such a good breakdown of how to think about what you will be posting before simply setting off and writing something people wont be looking for. I like to create a sense of urgency, identify a problem which someone may not have thought about (I use Google Trends alot for this) and then create a plan for the fix of a problem you weren’t even aware you had – or the true problem, if this makes sense. I like how you approach this and will use it in my next blog post. I write both fiction and non-fiction pieces as well a speaches. I have a series on Anglo-Saxons as well as a fictional murder mystery set in Anglo-Saxon times where the would-be detective is name Father Eadred. Anyways, I really enjoyed this post and will be sure to read more of your posts in the future.
    best regards
    Lindsay

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