11 tips to write attractive headlines for the blog post

Are you struggling to get enough traffic to your blog post? Do you know, your headlines of the blog posts can impact click-through rate. An excellent, attractive, magnetic, clickable headline can make your blog post successful.

In this article, we have shared the 11 tips to create attractive headlines for your blog post that will help to increase your blog traffic and your conversion.

Headlines are the most important for part of content writing. Your blog post headline should represent the entire content in the article. Headlines are the first line of text that your readers get access to because it appears on the search results page, social share, etc. Your blog post headline is the deciding factor for readers whether to read the entire post or not.

Even if you have an excellent, unique, informative content, you must need an attention-grabbing headline to increase your readership. Attractive headlines have the potential of getting more social shares as well.

According to copy blogger, 8 out of 10 people will read only the headlines, but only 2 out of 10 people will actually read the entire blog post.

If you want your headlines to be more effective, then you must know about your audience very well. Make sure that every headline has a keyword with significant search volume. You have to write at least 25 - 30 headlines for every piece of content.

Tips for creating attractive headlines

• Keep it short & simple
• Use numbers. Make a list
• Ask questions
• Be useful
• Use emotional adjectives
• Use rationale words
• Make a promise
• Be ultra-specific
• Use negative superlatives
• Create a sense of urgency
• Use active voice in your titles

Keep it Short and simple

Shorter headlines are easier to read than longer headlines, and shorter headlines are also good for SEO. According to Outbrain, eight-word titles received a 21% higher click-through rate than average.

Keep your headlines under 70 characters (including space) because longer headlines will be truncated in search results. So your reader can’t read the headline completely. Shorter headlines are good for social media shares as well.

According to Hubspot,

• 8 –12-word headlines got the most Twitter shares on average
• Headlines with 12 – 14 word got the most Facebook likes

Make sure that your headlines are easy to understand. By reading the blog post's headline, a reader should be able to understand the insights of an article. Use simple but strong words in your headlines to grab your reader’s attention.

Eg: How to write magnetic headlines?

Use numbers. Make a list

Including numbers in headlines is the most effective way to entice readers to click. Our brain normally attracted to numbers and lists.

Most of the articles in search engine results are having numbers in its headline. Using numbers in headlines actually, intensify the reader’s attention. Number and list headlines promise a quick read.

Odd number headlines tend to perform better than even number headlines. A study by Outbrain and HubSpot shows that headlines with odd numbers got 20% more clicks than the even number headlines.

Lower numbers work better than higher ones because they assure a short article. Number 7 works particularly well in headlines.

Eg: 10 best free SEO tools to improve your Google ranking.

Ask questions

Headlines with questions instantly get people’s attention. To increase CTR use 5 Ws and 1 H in your headlines (who, what, when, where, why, and how). Why do the headlines with questions work well? because the question headlines provide a solution to a specific problem of your visitor, and the question headlines create curiosity.

Headlines with questions, encourage your readers to know more about the content. These type of headlines help your readers to understand the topic clearly, and it also helps to attract more readers.

Question headlines will get more engagements on social media posts as well. If you frame your headline as a question, then make the question that provokes your reader’s thoughts.

Eg: Why the role of digital marketing is important to your business growth?

Be useful

If you want to attract and entice your readers to click your headline link, then make your headlines useful. Make your headlines that your readers feel like it is just for them.

Your readers want to know what they can benefit out of reading your blog post or article. So your headline must convey the benefit and give a reason to your readers to click. Your headline needs to tell a story, and you must provide value for your readers.

Eg: Tips for optimizing your images for SEO.

Use emotional adjectives

Headlines with strong adjectives will make your headlines great, and headlines with emotional adjectives get more attention than others. Also, the headlines which generate emotions get more shares as well.

Without power words, your headline would be boring, and those headlines would fail to entice your readers.

Power words in your headlines make your visitors read your blog post rather than just scanning over it. So engage your readers with strong adjectives.

Here are some examples

• Excellent
• Effective
• Ultimate
• Incredible
• Free
• Instantly
• Simple
• Absolute
• Effortless
• New and so on

Eg: Ultimate guide for SEO beginners

Use rationale words

Rationale words in your headlines induce your readers to click. If you want your reader to click your headline, then you should provide a reason for that. Rationale words in your headlines increase your click-through rate.

Here are some examples that you can use your headlines

• Ways
• Strategies
• Tips
• Tricks
• Ideas
• Reasons and so on

Eg: 13 strategies to improve website loading speed

Make a promise

Your headline should promise something valuable. A good headline should also convey to the reader that the time spent in this post is worth to them.

Your headlines should convey to your readers what that blog post is going to offer them. You need to picture your reader's problem in your headlines. Make sure your headlines make a promise a benefit. Promise – driven headlines catch your reader’s eyes.

Eg: 7 tips to lose weight in 7 days at home.

Be ultra-specific

Ultra-Specific headlines are specifically created to target the audience. Your headlines should be ultra-specific, and it should convey to readers exactly and easily what your blog post or content all about.

Specificity is a key element for effective headlines, and it makes your headline trustworthy. This type of headline helps to build a relationship with your readers that is necessary for business growth.

Provide enough information in headlines that should compel your readers to click. Ultra-specific headlines increase your readership and it also gets more social media shares.

Eg: 5 foods that are good for your eyes

Use negative superlatives

Negative headlines get more attention than positive headlines. A study by Outbrain found that a headline with negative superlatives such as never, worst, bad, stop, avoid performed 30% better than average. On the other hand, a headline with positive superlatives such as best always performed 29% worse than average.

The average Click through rate of headlines with negative superlatives is 63% higher than the positive superlatives. So, the negativity grabs the attention of your reader,  and also,  it increases the curiosity. Negative superlatives are more emotional than positive superlatives, so the use of negative superlatives in headlines bring more clicks as well.

Eg: 7 worst digital marketing mistakes your brand should avoid

Create a sense of urgency

Create a sense of urgency is an effective way to engage your readers. A sense of urgency compels your audience to click and to read now rather than later.

The urgency in your headline will help to show that the blog post or content is very relevant to your target audience. So finally, it increases your click-through rate.

This type headlines will always grab your reader’s attention. Include the words like “right now”, “immediately”, “today only”, “offer expires tomorrow”, “last chance”, “don’t miss out”, “limited time” and “hurry” in your headlines help to increase the curiosity.

E-commerce website like Amazon uses the power of urgency very effectively. They use FOMO strategy (fear of missing out), and it works well. They announced that you have only a few numbers of items left in stock, and it will create a scarcity. Now the readers can't ignore it, because they don’t want to miss out. Follow this strategy in your headlines too.

Eg: 10 simple tips to reduce your website’s bounce rate today.

Use active voice in your titles

Active voice works well in headlines because it personalizes your headline. Active voice strengthens your headlines and it easy to understand as well.

Passive voice: why passive voice should be avoided in your headline

Active voice: why you should avoid passive voice in your headline.

Now it’s the time to analyze your headlines.

You can use the Headline analyzer tool from co.schedule.com to analyze your headlines. This is a free tool that will help you to write headlines that drive traffic, social shares.

Conclusion

I hope these 11 tips will help you to increase your readership. Try all of the above techniques to write attractive headlines in your articles and blog posts.