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6 Statistics for a Successful Headline From 50 Viral Articles
Structure, length, look
As a writer, you don’t want to write “just for yourself”. You write to be read. You write because you feel like you have something to share. That’s why you need readers.
Reading an article takes time. Readers don’t want to “lose” theirs in reading half an article about something they’re not interested in. That’s why headlines are important. They are a promise.
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar”. — David Ogilvy
As a writer, I often wonder about what makes a successful headline. I decided to pick 50 successful articles here on Medium — stories that received 1K+ claps — and compare their headline, on both objective and subjective criteria.
This is what I found.
#1 — Simplicity
The best headlines keep it simple. Whether in the words or the construction, the best headlines are easy to read.
Here are a few examples:
- How To Become Ridiculously Self-Aware In 20 Minutes
(81K claps — by Tom Kuegler) - 50 iOS Interview Questions And Answers…
