Brainstorm a great headline

How to Write Headlines: a Step-by-Step Guide

If you want your blog posts to perform well, one simple way to achieve this is by writing magnetic headlines.  By playing around with your title after publishing a post, you may significantly increase the post’s conversion rate.

Why Should You Care About Headlines?

Traffic to your post will vary depending on the power of your headline. If you fail to make it impactful and clickable, every other marketing step that you take will be a total waste of time.

Step #1:  Use Specific Numbers and Data in Your Headline

Integrating specific numbers and data into your headline is an effective way to make your article more enticing to readers. Several research studies have shown that headlines with numbers tend to generate more social shares and engagement.

According to Debra Jason, one of the reasons why using numbers works in your headlines is because numbers are like “brain candy.” They are addictive, and our minds can’t get enough of them.

Additionally, it’s very important to understand the science behind odd numbers in particular. Often, you find viral blog posts with seemingly random numbers in the headlines and you may have stopped to wonder why the authors didn’t use even numbers in their list post.

Step #2:  Utilize a Unique Rationale

I’ve used unique rationales to write great headlines (if I say so myself) that went viral. The word “rationale” simply means “an underlying reason why something should be done.” If you want people to read your content, do you have a good reason why they should?

With 59% of people sharing content without reading it first, we need to make sure our headlines appeal to people who will. To avoid wasting time on content, give people a strong reason why they should click, read and above all: share your content. Businesses that have a blog experience twice as much email traffic as businesses who don’t. 

Some of the rationales that you can include in your headlines are:

• Tips ✅
• Reasons ✅
• Lessons ✅
• Tricks ✅
• Ideas ✅
• Ways ✅
• Principles ✅
• Facts ✅
• Secrets ✅
• Strategies ✅

Here are some examples of our rationale in action:

• 5 Tips to Write Blog Introductions Like a Pro
• 15 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way as a 3-Year-Old Blogger
• 8 Principles for Designing a Perfect Landing Page

Step #3: Call for Attention

The purpose of the headline is to get your viewer to read the first sentence. Every headline should call for attention. “Attention” simply means mental focus and serious concentration on a given task.

Keep in mind that your customers are human beings with thousands of ads, blogs, articles, and more vying for their attention every single day.Unfortunately, people’s attention spans have been decreasing year by year.  The average person’s attention span now falls between 12 and 8 sec.

If you’re a small business owner, one of the ways to acquire and retain customers is by engaging them with great content. 

After all, great content always starts with a headline that captures your reader’s attention.

You’ve got to convince your customers and prospects to keep reading. The headline can build that momentum for you.

So, instead of putting all your time and energy into getting email subscribers and making sales, start focusing on using headlines to get people to read the  first sentence.That should be your headline’s true purpose. If you accomplish that goal, the introduction, the subtitles, the bullet points, and the storytelling will take care of the rest and convert the reader into a customer.

Before I show you some simple ways to write headlines that will call for attention, here are four rules to follow. They’re considered the “4 Us” of writing attention-driven headlines:

The four Us are:

• make the headline unique
• be ultra-specific
• convey a sense of urgency
• provide something useful