If you’ve been involved in online marketing for anytime at all, you understand how important the headline is to your success. It is the gateway to your content. Whether it is a sales letter, a blog post, a news release, or an article, the headline is what pulls your reader into your content.
So, here are eight tips to creating attention demanding headlines.
1. Review the sites of 10 top marketers before you begin to write. They are top marketers for a reason. And they didn’t get to the top by having lousy headlines. Now, don’t copy their headlines. That’s just wrong. But you can gather inspiration from them.
2. Keep the headline short. In testing, 5-7 word headlines generally work the best. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a 2 word or a 13 word headline be successful. But you will be bucking the odds. People want to quickly get to the point. So keep it short.
3. Use a question as your headline. This is a great way to pull the reader into your content. There’s a reason for the saying “Curiosity killed the cat”. People are curious by nature. We don’t like unanswered questions. But there is a catch. The answer to the question in your headline needs to be your product. So use a question as your headline and your readers will be more likely to read your content as they look for the answer to that question, which is your product.
4. Use an exclamation point or a question mark in your headline. This will help your headline stand out and breaks up the readers eye from seeing just plain text.
5. Be Clear. Most of the time, simple is better.
6. Use a “number of steps” formula. Almost every product can be broken up into a number of steps. “Learn piano in 7 easy steps” or “3 quick steps to secure your childs safety” are examples of using number of steps in your headline. Telling someone the number of steps to obtain the desired result, especially if the number is low, is a great way to get your reader to continue reading.
7. Use a “number of ways” formula. In this case, the larger the number the better. “30 ways to increase your income” is better than “3 ways to increase your income”. You get the idea.
8. Use an “in under” formula. This relates to time. “Master guitar in under 7 days” or “Who else wants $10,000 in under 30 days?” are examples of using this formula.
So, there you are. Eight tips to help you create headlines that demand attention.
(By the way, “Who else wants” or “Who else desires” or “Who else needs” is an excellent way to begin a question headline. Those words have been proven over and over. So, there you go, an extra tip.)
Filed under: Business Building | Tagged: headlines, how to, how to write a headline, Internet Marketing, successful headlines
