How to Write a Catchy Headline: 47 Tips From 20 Top Medium Authors

Learn from the best and forget the rest

Photo by Min An from Pexels

I just bombed another headline. I spent 5 hours researching a topic I felt was incredibly interesting. 2 hours writing and rewriting. 1 hour of meticulously editing it line by line.

I applied to a big publication. It was unusually accepted straight away. They accelerated the publishing of it to just a few short hours later and it was even featured by Medium!

Then…crickets.

I’m sure you know this feeling. It friggin’ sucks.

Could the writing have been better? Most assuredly. Could it have been more succint, elaborate, or stylish? Absolutely. But it was a good piece of content — and the likely reason it failed with that much promotion was the usual suspect — a bad title.

So, that’s why I sat down and researched some of Medium’s biggest authors to see what their thoughts are on the subject.

If you have any similar struggles with crafting enticing titles — this piece is for you.

What’s in this article?

I curated 20 of the most popular pieces describing authors’ methods on how to craft a perfect title. I’ve listed their article with a link, a brief…