How to Write Phenomenal Blog Headlines for Your Content — JFW Marketing

I confess I’m a sucker for click-bait headlines.

I mean, who can resist “How to make $10,000 a month blogging,” or “What these 80s celebrities look like now!” I’m sorry I’m shallow.

I look up a lot of information and answers online. I quickly scan headlines, looking for those keywords that are going to make me click.

In this post, I’ll talk about how you can write incredible headlines for your blog that make people stop and stare and CLICK!!!!

In this post I’m going to cover:

• Why you need strong headlines
• What elements make a killer headline
• How to check your competition
• How to test the strength of your headline

Why you need strong headlines

You need your potential customer to click on that headline.

But, only 20% of viewers of your headline will ever read your content. That’s why you need to give a bit of love and attention to making it as mesmerizing as possible.

“Like the lead paragraph in a news story or thesis in an essay, your headline is your one true sentence: the single most important asset for capturing attention in the feed.” - ShareThrough

What makes a killer headline?

“78 Marketing Tasks You Should Outsource Immediately”

This blog post by QuickSprout was shared 956 times on Facebook, so it definitely packed a punch. Why? Well, it’s got the elements of a powerful headline.

Let’s have a look at what those are.

It’s got a number. We all love action points. It also shows that the blog post contains a LOT of quantitative information.

It’s got a trigger word — a word that triggers us to do something.

It has an urgent trigger word — immediately.

And it’s personalized to YOU!

Numbers

Numbers promise the ready that they will get a quantity of information. The higher the number, the more quality you may get. Not always though.

A low number may also let your reader know that you are concise and get to the point.

According to Social Media Examiner, odd numbers and the number 7 are great for headlines.

People love numbered lists. They are easy to scan and easy to follow.

Numbers are also easier to read than words.

Personalization

It’s got a number. We all love action points.

It’s got an action verb “Kill”. It’s also personalized to the reader — YOU.

Let’s look back at our initial search for Virtual Assistants.

What initially stood out for you?

For me, it was the words “Help Me,” “Help You”, “Tasks You Can Outsource.” That personalization helped sway my decision to click.

Try headlines that start with “Do You Want To….” “Your Business…”

Promises

In my blog posts, my underlying reason for writing is that I want to empower and equip small businesses with tips to either launch or grow with content marketing.

Every post headline provides a promise that you will learn something by the end of it.

Power Words

Jeff Bullas has a list of 79 power words that tap into our subconscious and can have a transformative effect.

Obviously citing quantities of money in a title also helps too.

• Profit
• More
• Bonus
• Safety
• Now
• Today
• Results
• Challenge
• Bargain…obviously new and free!

Obviously citing quantities of money in a title also helps too.

Trigger Words

Or you could go for trigger words that spark engagement and are full of emotion like:

• Free
• Fix
• Proven
• New
• Easy
• Simple
• Secret
• Convert
• You
• Discover
• Boost
• Stop…and Start
• Want
• Win

Then there are urgent time imperative trigger words:

• Limited
• Deal
• Expiring
• Deadline
• Seize

What about frustrated trigger words:

• Tired of
• Had enough of
• Sick of
• Ever feel that

Or try some mysterious words like:

• Banned
• Exposed
• Revealed
• Secret

Formulas to use when creating headlines

Hubspot formula

How to + Action + Keyword + Promise

It’s definitely a winning formula and it’s simple.

Ooh, yes please, tell me more.

The Ninja headline formula

The Exposure Ninja team has some useful formulas too.

Offer + Time + Without Potential Objection

• Transform your 9–5 in 10 days without spending money.
• Radically transform your business in 5 days without burning out

Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Promise

• How You Can Become a Super Shepreneur and Archive a Work-Life Balance
• Why Hiring an Amazing Virtual Assistant Will Help You Make a Fortune
• Why Doing This 1 Crazy Thing Could Make You Rich

Number + Adjective + Keyword

• 10 Incredible Ways a VA Could Change Your Business
• 20 Ways Your Life Will Be Transformed by a Virtual Assistant
• 5 Ways To Radically Change Your Profitability with a Virtual Assistant

Melanie Duncan’s 4U formula

You could also try Melanie Duncan’s 4U formula where you make your words useful, urgent, unique, and ultra-specific.

Useful “List” headlines

Let’s give it a go.

• 24-Hour Offer That Will Radically Overhaul Your Business With My 411 Virtual Assistant Service
• Improve Your Productivity Within the Week With Limited Access to the Exclusive 411 Virtual Assistant Service

Both titles have got a lot of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) in there with the implied urgency with ‘24-hour offer’ and ‘limited.’ I’ve also added my fake VA brand name to make it specific to me.

Here are some other headline starter titles you could use that are ‘useful.’

Useful “How” headlines

• How you can
• How to achieve
• How to master
• How-to guide
• The Ultimate guide

Useful “The” headlines

• The Ultimate guide
• The Small Business Guide to
• The crafters guide to
• The Best

Useful “List” headlines

• Top 10
• 24 Ways
• 64 Ways
• 100 Ways
• A million ways…too far

Check your headline matches your customer persona’s needs

No matter what combination of power or trigger words you include, it is also important to make sure your chosen combination of words will speak to your customer.

Use your customer persona template to find out what frustrates and delights your customers. These pain points and goals should determine what headline is most likely to appeal to them.

Does your company aim to solve a frustration? If so use that in your headline.

• Struggling to Do Your Business Taxes?
• How to Make Your Corporate Event Amazing?

Aim to educate, inform or entertain in your headlines. You want to show your customer that you provide value and are trustworthy.

Check what the competitors are posting

Are there popular posts that you could write better, or have a different take on? Could you use a shocking negative headline, but then counter it in your post?

Pinterest is a great place to get ideas.

Let’s use the example of a Virtual Assistant business. I’ve typed in “save time admin” as my keywords into Pinterest, and here are some Pin headlines I’ve returned.

• Why I automate the Eff out of my Business (And You Should Too)
• 20 Productivity Hacks to Supercharge Your Workflow
• 84 Time-Saving Tasks a Virtual Assistant Can Do For You
• Get 800 Instagram Story Templates Done for You
• Why You Should Hire a Virtual Assistant
• How to Make $10,000 a month as a Virtual Assistant
• How to Make $4,700/mo as a Virtual Assistant
• 11 Secrets All Female Billionaires All Have In Common

They each use either power words, figures, and triggers like how, why and secret.

Let’s check YouTube next.

• 4 Reasons Why You NEED to Hire a Virtual Assistant in The Phillippines
• 9 Reasons to Hire a Virtual Assistant From the Phillippines
• 25 Tasks You Can Outsource to A Virtual Assistant
• Best Tasks to Outsource to a Virtual Assistant
• How to Hire and Manage Virtual Assistants to Explode Your Business
• How to Grow Your Business by Outsourcing & Hiring Virtual Assistants
• How to Hire a Virtual Assistant (SCALE YOUR BUSINESS IN 2020!)

I mean there’s a lot going on for Filipino VAs on YouTube. Not great for my business, but even more reason to nail this headline.

Again, numbers are important in these headlines. As are the words “reasons,” “how to” and “why.”

Test the strength of your headline

Try using Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer or Sharethrough tool which gives you a score to tell you how compelling your headline is.

Conclusion

“Some copywriters write tricky headlines — double meanings, puns and other obscurities. This is counter-productive. In the average newspaper, your headline has to compete with 350 others. Readers travel fast through this jungle. Your headline should telegraph what you want to say.”

- David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

Whichever formula you use or tool to optimize your header, always go back to your customer persona.

What will move them? What will excite them? What really gets to the heart of their problem and shouts in the headline — OVER HERE — I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!!

Top tip!

Unsure which word to capitalize in your headline? Use the Headline Capitalization : Title Case Tool.

Originally published at https://www.jfw.marketing on January 23, 2021.