Great content marketers will tell you to spend as much time on your blog headlines as on your actual content. Which means, if you spend 4 hours writing a blog, you should spend that much on your headline as well.
While this may not be an exact science, it puts a ton of emphasis on the fact that your headline needs to be taken as seriously, if not more seriously, than your actual content.
The same goes for social media posts, podcasts, paid advertising, email, YouTube videos, and all other types of content.
Bad blog headlines equal bad results. It’s as simple as that.
I’m going to give you 4 examples of great headline types backed by data that will get your content more clicks, more views, and more buzz.
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1. Use “How to” in Your Headline
This type of headline is pretty simple. If you explain how to do something in a video, use “How to” in your headline. Think about it like this…If you need to figure out how to unclog a drain or install a windshield wiper on your car, you’re going to go to a site like Google or YouTube and type in “How to _____ ”
It’s great to have “How to” in your headline because search engines are going to show that content to help solve a problem. When you’re creating headlines, oftentimes the most actionable ones are the best.
When you create your content, put yourself in the shoes of the reader or watcher. What are they looking for? That’s why the “How to” headline works.
Example:
2. Try a “Will Make You” Headline
Buzzsumo analyzed over 100 million headlines on Facebook to see which ones performed the best and this was the most clicked on and engaged with headline phrase by far.
The “Will Make You” blog headline is pretty simple and easy to create.
These types of headlines are great because they tell you a few things. They tell you the subject of the article you’re reading, they give you the promise and desired outcome of “what this will make you do”
The greatest thing about this type of headline is that you can use it to immediately connect with any audience in almost any industry because of the emotional nature of them.
Example:
3. Use a Big Number in Your Headline
The Big Number headline uses numbers to entice people to click on the post. Using numbers in your content helps to organize exactly what you’re talking about into easy, digestible, segments. Using numbers at the beginning of your headline gives your readers a great indication of what they’re getting into.
Example:
- 27 Useful Tips To Overcome Your Fear Of Public Speaking
- 56 Motivational Quotes That Will Inspire Success
These headlines have performed very well for us because of the fact that they use numbers at the beginning.
4. Use Power Words in Your Headline
The Emotional headline is used to convey a certain emotion from the words that you use. These headlines perform really well when you incorporate Power Words to describe your subject. Power words are words like awesome, magnificent, timeless, glamourous, cringeworthy, extraordinary.
These words make your post stand out. There may be hundreds of posts or videos on the same subject, but if your headline has the stronger emotional headline, you’ll get more clicks.
Example:
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- 19 AWESOME Inspirational Quotes For An Amazing 2019
The best tip I can give you is to always deliver on what you say. Keep your promises in your content. Not only will you gain customers from it, but you can be one of the people making a difference and restoring the trust to the internet.
How to Write the Perfect Headline
Keep in mind that a perfect headline may have a combination of all of these types in them. The “Will Make You” headline are almost better with a big number included and a power word. So keep that in mind.
Your perfect formula could look like this:
Number + Subject That You’re Talking About + Will Make You + Emotion or Promise
Try some of these headline formulas yourself and let us know what happens to your content.
