How to take the headache out of headlines

Mention writing blog post, email newsletter, or marketing automation email headlines to many people and they’ll tell you they simply aren’t marketers or salespeople and can’t do it for love or money.

The truth is that it really doesn’t have to be hard. All you need is the right tools and a little inspiration. As long as you have a good sense of what you’re writing about and a plan, writing the headlines to grab the reader’s attention need not be difficult.

3 key rules for writing headlines

There are 3 key rules to remember when writing headlines.

Know your headline type

• Some headline types gain better social shares, traffic, and search engine ranking.
• Use a headline analyser to help you understand your headline types.
• List, “how to”, and question headlines usually see the strongest results for click-throughs.

Get the balance right

• Look for the right balance of words in your headlines.
• This ensures your headlines are readable and attention-grabbing.
• Research proves readers share emotional and positive headlines with their social networks.

Get the length right

• The right amount of words (and characters) affect how people read your headlines.
• This impacts click-throughs to read your content.
• Check for optimal character length for search engines like Google and email subject lines.

Tools

We’re strong advocates of using the right tool for the job and when it comes to writing headlines, there are two we swear by.

The first is the Headline Swipe File from Digital Marketer. It contains nearly 100 headline formula suggestions, falling broadly into three categories: social proof, threat, and gain headlines.

There’s barely a single instance I can think which one or more of the dozens of suggestions wouldn’t fit.

Steal this Headline Swipe File to Get More Clicks from Social Media

The second tool we recommend is the Headline Analyzer from CoSchedule. It looks at all three rules and scores your headline based on the type, balance of words, and length.

Write Better Headlines: Free Headline Analyzer From CoSchedule - @CoSchedule

There are plenty of other tools around worthy of a mention. Here are 10 of the best:

• Sharethrough Headline Analyzer
• SubjectLine.com
• Portent’s Content Idea Generator
• KingSumo Headlines
• Blogabout Blog Title Generator
• SEOPressor title generator
• Content Row
• Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator
• Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer
• HeadlineEnvy (WordPress plugin)

Summary

Always start with a plan. We recommend our 10 x 10 Matrix, which sets you up with more than a year’s worth of content. Then set to planning the calendar with publication dates and get busy writing, planning headlines and calls to action in a dedicated planner or spreadsheet.

Originally published at PENNInk Productions.