Writing headlines is tough!
When I first started blogging, I was terrible at writing headlines. My headlines were dull and could put people to sleep. The headlines didn’t justify what my content is about.
I’ve written excellent content in the past only to find out that I had to make a ton of adjustments to my headline to get more traffic. To date, I’ve been blogging for more than six years and have written more than 600 blog posts. I’ve learned a lot and picked up many tricks. If you are struggling with headlines that converge to page views. I can tell you is there are infinite ways to write interesting headlines. In this post, I will give you all my tips and tricks that have been proven to catch attention.
First, let’s talk about what makes a good headline. A good headline is:
- Short and sweet
- Full of interesting adjectives
- Related to the blog post
- Not overly ‘clickbaity’
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Start with a Draft Title
Before you start writing an excellent headline, begin with a rough draft. The headline should just describe what you’re going to write. It doesn’t have to be fancy.
For example, if you’re writing a blog post about headlines, it can be “how to write great headlines.”
If you’re writing about finding royalty images for your blog, it can be as simple as ‘how to find royalty images for your blog.” The draft should just focus on your content. What you should do is focus on your content first.
After you have completed your blog post, move onto the next step.
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Make Your Headline Sexy
There are lots of ways to make a title pop. I’ve collected templates over the years that have helped me take my headlines to the next level.
If you think writing sexy headlines is impossible, think again and see these templates.
- The secret to getting ______
- Proven: The most effective way to get ______
- Little Known ways to ______
- Discover the ______ you get with ______
- The right way to solve ______
- Here’s a quick way to solve ______
- [Number] Lessons I Learned From ______
- How I got ______ by making this unusual mistake.
- How I Made ______ in ______
- Advanced Guide: ______
- How to Survive Your First ______
- How to _____ in X days
- How to _____ without _____
- Everything You Need to Know About Getting _____
- How to Plan the Ultimate _____
- Here is a Method That is Helping _____ to _____
- Surprising Things You Can _____
- _____ backed by science
- Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
- The Big List of _____
- Build a _____ You Can Be Proud Of
- What Everybody Ought to Know About ______
- The Foolproof Formula to ______
This list serves as a simple guide. How did I compile it? I usually head over to BuzzSumo to search for posts using my keywords and look at the top posts that are getting shared on social media. These posts tell me that both the content and headline is spot on which is the reason why they are getting shared in the first place.
I’ll also look at Inbound.org. While they don’t have the best headlines, they do offer some more good ideas.
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Use Powerful Adjectives
My next tip is to use interesting adjectives. Adjectives will provide enticing details about your topic Here are some examples that will tempt the viewer to read on:
- Effortless
- Painstaking
- Fun
- Free
- Best
- Brilliant
- Epic
- Essential
- Excellent
- Fails
- Fantastic
- Gorgeous
- Important
- Kickass
- Killer
- Mind blowing
- Persuasive
- Simple
- Successful
- Ultimate
- Useful
- Valuable
- Incredible
- Essential
- Absolute
- Strange
Take this headline for example:
How to Write a Blog Post Everyday
You can easily tweak it to
How to Effortlessly Write a Blog Post Everyday
With one adjective, the title is transformed into something anyone who is interested in writing blog posts would want to read. Simple!
And that’s just one variation. You could also try:
How to Effortlessly Write Valuable Blog Posts Everyday
Use the list of powerful adjectives to take your headlines to the next level.
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Use headline tools
To get you inspired, you can also try both of these tools below. I’ve used them many times, and they work!
This tool allows you to type your proposed headline and it will grade it for you. It will show the strengths and make suggestions to help you improve your headline.
2. Blog Title Generator by SEOPressor
This tool is simple. All you need to do is key in a term and it will give you suggestions for improving your headline.
Summing up:
Coming up with catchy headlines doesn’t have to be complicated.
The four steps above can help you to create killer headlines that convert. I recommend coming up with a minimum of five headlines. If you want to improve, come up with ten headlines for every article you produce. Practice makes perfect.
The next time you have to write a catchy headline, use these secret powerful headline formulas to make the readers visit and read your content.