With millions of blog posts published daily — and a wealth of social media content produced every minute — people need a way to figure out what’s worth paying attention to. The headline, or title of your content, is how they decide.
Given how much content is out there, your headline must truly engage to attract attention.
Here’s how to make sure it does every time.
Why Should You Care About Headlines?
In the digital world, your headline is more than just the title at the top of a web page. It’s what appears first in search results, social media posts, and ads on other sites.
Headlines are also a key component of a good call to action (CTA) — the ask the marketer is directing to the customer. “A strong headline grabs the attention of the user, while the description emphasizes the benefits they’ll gain by taking action. Finally, the button is a clear, immediate action to proceed, guiding them toward their desired goal,” writes David Alex on SquareSpace’s Making It blog.
The bottom line is that writing engaging headlines is the first step to attracting traffic to your website.
How to Write Headlines That Will Engage Your Readers
Creating engaging headlines takes strategy and artfulness. Here are a few tips to guide the headline-creation process.
Write Clickable, Not Clickbait
There’s a huge difference in the user experience between a clickbait headline and a clickable one. Clickbait headlines are enticing, but rarely deliver. If people visit your site and don’t find what they expect, they’ll click away fast. That’s bad for your reputation, and it reduces your content’s prominence in search results. Both Google and Facebook in recent years have tried to decrease the reach of clickbait articles on their platforms. By contrast, clickable headlines also make people want to click — but they deliver what visitors expect when they land on a web page.
Keep Headlines Short and Clear
Next, keep headlines short. That’s because Google displays only approximately the first 60 characters in search engines. That’s not a fixed rule, though, so don’t be afraid to go longer if necessary. Experts generally say the ideal headline length is six words or 50 to 70 characters.
Most important is that your headline grabs potential visitors and tells them what to expect. Whether you play it straight or use humor, readers want to know what they’re getting. The goal is to communicate the benefit of your content or product, focusing on how it will help them.
Appeal to the Reader’s Emotion
Content marketing platform BuzzSumo analyzed 100 million articles and found the most successful headlines contain words that relate to the post format, the type of content, emotions, a trending topic, and a promise to the reader, e.g. 25 Surprising Stats That’ll Make You a Marketing Genius.
When crafting an emotional appeal to entice people to click, surprise, curiosity, simplicity, and urgency all make your headlines more compelling. This list of power words will help you start building a list that works for your products.
Examples of Effective Headlines
Certain headlines consistently engage audiences. Each example below offers a clear benefit to the user, engages their emotions, or peaks their curiosity. Use the following formats as a starting point for creating your own.
- The number or list: 4 Tips for Writing Engaging Headlines
- The how-to: How to Write Engaging Headlines for Your Articles
- The question: How Do Publishers Write Engaging Headlines?
- The command: Use These Tips to Write Headlines That Win Traffic
- The story: What Happened When I Wrote 25 Engaging Headlines
- The fear-based appeal: Warning! These 5 Headline Types Will Tank Your Traffic
How to Use Keyword Trends to Write Engaging Headlines
One way to make your headlines instantly more appealing is to combine winning headline formats with current trending words. Use Taboola Keyword Trends to find keywords with a high engagement rate. You can also use BuzzSumo’s content analyzer to find the most shared content with those keywords, and use those titles as a prompt.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with multiple headlines. Many publishers and bloggers write multiple headlines before picking the one they think will work best. You can then use Taboola Title Analyzer to test your titles and find those with a high predicted click-through rate (CTR).
Not surprisingly, the strategies that work best depend on your industry. To see what we mean, here are a few examples by industry sector:
Education
We looked at desktop users in the education sector and found that using the words “perfect” and “test” in a title lifts engagement by 104% and 191% respectively.
Consider the following possible titles. In our test, the second vastly outperformed the first — probably because it uses an odd number and emotive keywords.
- 6 Ways to Get Perfect Test Scores on Your SATs
- 11 Tips to Help Your Students Get Perfect Test Scores
Health and Fitness
In the health-and-fitness vertical our keyword trends research suggested that a title about eating bananas would be engaging, so we came up with three headline options. The last was the clear winner. It doesn’t just use engaging keywords; it inspires curiosity with the word “hidden.”
- Is Eating Bananas Bad For You? Learn the Facts
- I Ate 20 Bananas This Week. Here’s What Happened
- The Hidden Truth About Eating Bananas
Auto
The Taboola Trends tool suggests high engagement with keywords like “worthless,” “soon,” “plummeting” and “value.”
We tested the headlines below. Though the first is very emotive, it reads exaggerated and like clickbait. It’s no surprise that the popular how-to headline offers a better predicted CTR.
- Warning! Your Auto Trade-in Value Could Soon Be Worthless
- How to Avoid Plummeting Trade-in Values
Business
“Break” and “take” are top performing terms in the business vertical. We tried two ideas, but the how-to ended up the clear winner.
- 9 Reasons to Take a Break From Your Business
- How to Take Breaks and Still Win Business
Food
Keyword trends suggest headlines about blood pressure achieve high engagement. We tested three options. The second headline had a higher predicted CTR than the first, likely because it offers a solution. Then look at the third option — adding the word “simple” outperforms the others. With people looking for easy solutions, simplicity has more click appeal.
- 5 Tips to Lower Your Blood Pressure Safely
- Blood Pressure Woes? The Best Way to Stay in Control
- 5 Simple Tips to Lower Your Blood Pressure Safely
Key Takeaways
Will people consume your content or ignore it? The difference between those two outcomes starts with the headline.
Data from Taboola Keyword Trends show that following formulas for writing engaging headlines is a good start. You’ll have even more success if you use current keyword trends to improve engagement and CTR. Don’t be afraid to test multiple versions till you find the title that works best for you.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How Much Time Should You Spend Writing Headlines?
While there’s no set amount of time to spend writing a headline, consider this: 75% of social media users only read a headline before sharing a link. That means your title is the first — and often only — impression you can make to get a reader onto your content. Extra time and effort on headlines often directly impacts whether your content accomplishes your business goals: whether that is growing your audience, converting viewers to buyers, or establishing your expertise in a certain subject matter.
How Do You Start Writing a Headline?
Headlines should be clear, concise, and represent the information in an article or video. But above all, headlines should be interesting enough to get the reader to click on your content. The most successful headlines contain words that relate to the post format, the type of content, emotions, a trending topic, and a promise to the reader. It is also often helpful to incorporate trending keywords, as these can increase the likelihood the right audience will find your content in search.
What Is the Format for Headlines?
There is no one format for headlines, but there are some structures that consistently engage audiences. These include the number or list, asking a question, giving a command, hinting at a story, or appealing to the audience’s fears.
