How to write powerful headlines that drive traffic
Headlines aren’t a blog post’s finishing touch, but rather the determining factor in whether people will engage with your content. Don’t botch your greatest opportunity to get clicks.
This article originally ran on PR Daily in January of 2017.
If you flub your headline, it doesn’t matter how great your blog post is.
Posts with weak headlines get drastically fewer shares, clicks and readers. However, if you get your headline right, you’re halfway to success.
Writing good headlines doesn’t have to be difficult, but every extra minute you spend making them great will pay off. That’s why old-school copywriters (of the snail mail era) spent half their time writing headlines.
David Ogilvy said: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Ogilvy might have even underestimated headlines’ value. Your headline might be the only part of your post that people read. Most people don’t read the articles they share. They see the headline, source and catchy image, and they share.
This sharing-without-reading habit makes headlines even more crucial. So, how do you write good headlines?
There isn’t a foolproof process, but these techniques should put you ahead of the pack:
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