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You might not realise it, but your headline could be the reason you’re losing traffic. In fact, on average, only 20% of those who read your headline will click through to read your article. If your headline is not compelling, you’ll lose up to 80% of your audience.
Why are blog posts important?
Producing reliable, insightful industry news to your visitors pays off. Not only will it increase your reputability, but it will also increase your inbound links.
Inbound links (hyperlinks that go back to your site) are the lifeblood of any website. They’re the currency of the internet because high-quality backlinks, from a variety of sites, give your website a higher rank in search engine results. The more you blog about all things useful, the higher the chances of you getting those inbound links.
What makes a good headline?
How long should my headline be? What words should I use? What words should I avoid? Should I optimise it for search, or for social? Or both?
Luckily, we’ve come up with a simple list of catchy headlines and blog titles that you can reference from. So let’s just dive right in, shall we? Here are the top five most effective headlines:
1. The ‘Best’ Headline
These headlines are powerful for SEO. These types of headlines speak right to the common web searches of your customers. Consider this – if you’re searching for ways to save money, wouldn’t you be intrigued by the best way? Or would you be satisfied with any old way?
These headlines are typically exact-match searches; starting off with the words, “the best way to…”
Example: The Best Inbound Marketers Always Do This
2. The ‘If I Were You’ Headline
Most of us share a desire to improve. We want to be more productive and more successful. We all would love to accomplish more in less time. And, we all want to be good at what we do. It’s those desires that make the, “If I were you…” headlines so powerful.
When someone tells us how we should do something, we balk. When someone offers to show us why we should do something, it appeals to us. It speaks to the reasons and motivations we should adopt a new idea, or change our current ones.
Example: 7 Reasons Why You Should Include Videos In Your Content Marketing Strategy
3. The ‘Why X People Do X’ Headline
This title appeals to our desire to be the best. As Brian Tracy in his book, Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, says, “The people you most admire and look up to have an inordinate amount of influence on how you think and feel about yourself, and the kind of decisions you make.”
If your title can appeal to the kind of people your audience look up to, it can be a powerful incentive to read more.
4. The ‘Let Me List Them Out For You’ Headlines
For some reason, we like list posts. They appeal to a wide audience and inspire a lot of clicks compared to other types of articles. Which is why blogs like BuzzFeed constantly use them.
Example: 5 Reasons Why Emails Don’t Get Opened!
5. The ‘Click Bait’ Headlines
Deep down inside, humans are just as curious as cats. Headlines that appeal to our inner feline are super powerful. They create titles that dangle a carrot in front of us, forcing us to click through to get it.
If you’re going to use this tactic, you better deliver content that excites as much as the title. If not, you’ll just annoy your audience. I’ve started to loathe these headlines because more and more people are using them and not delivering on the anticipation. It’s annoying.
So why do people do it? It brings clicks.
These types of headlines work. Period.
Example: You won’t believe how these 9 shocking clickbaits work! (number 8 is a killer!)
Did I trick you into clicking the above link? No?
If you don’t think these tips are enough, you can check out HubSpot’s free Blog Ideas Generator tool. Just enter a noun that’s related to your business and the software will do its magic and give you content ideas. How cool is that?
To top off the great blog posts that you are writing, you may also be interested to learn other SEO techniques that will help drive your website onto the first page of Google. To learn more, download the latest webinar here:
