©Laura Spencer
What’s the first part of a post or article that you usually see? It’s the headline, of course.
A good headline can mean the difference between whether a piece is read or not read.
How many books have you picked up simply because the title seemed interesting? If you’re like me, the answer is more than one or two.
If you publish web content, a good title or headline is more important than ever before. A book in a store or an article in a magazine may have an attractive photo or cover design to draw the reader in.
On the web, however, readers are much more likely to be scanning lists of many articles or posts. Your headline has to grab their attention or you’ve lost them.
In this post, I share some resources to help you write good headlines for online articles or posts.
Headline Writing Resources
Fortunately, there are some excellent resources that you can use to make your headlines more effective. I’ve listed a few of them here:
- From Copyblogger.com: Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines, and Social Media and How to Write Headlines That Work
- Here’s a Net Writing post about headlines: 7 Easy Ways to Create Eye catching Titles
- From Lorelle on WordPress: Writing Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles on Your Blog
- From World Copywriting Blog: Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Headlines
- From Lockergnome: How To Write Web Headlines That Beg To Be Read
Your Turn
How do you make sure your headlines are strong? Share your answers in the comments.
17 responses so far ↓
1 Melissa R. Garrett // Jun 11, 2007 at
I’m definitely bookmarking this page and will reference those articles when needed. Thanks for sharing!
Melissa R. Garrett
http://www.LittleWoolgatherings.blogspot.com
http://www.TheSilverTongue.blogspot.com
2 Lorelle // Jun 11, 2007 at
Thank you for inclusion in this list. I’m in good company. 😉
3 Laura // Jun 12, 2007 at
Melissa, I’m glad this helped you.
Lorelle, Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you again.
4 Vivienne Quek // Jun 12, 2007 at
A headline is an ad within an ad. Great article. About 80% people read nothing but headline. If the headline refuses to captivate them, the rest of the offerings – no matter how great – is lost. Literally wasting good marketing/advertising dollar down the drain.
I would like your comment on an article I wrote for Affiliate KB entitled Sales Copy That’s Too Good To be True. I valued your comments as you are a professional writer. I’m writing from a marketing person as well as an end consumer. Looking forward to learning from you.
Thanks, Laura.
5 Jeanne Dininni // Jun 12, 2007 at
Laura,
Looks like you have some wonderful resources here! I definitely plan to check them out, one at a time, whenever I have a few free moments! It can never hurt us to learn the secrets for creating great headlines that will attract more readers to our content!
Thanks for the helpful info!
Jeanne
6 Laura // Jun 15, 2007 at
Hi Vivienne. I looked at your article and I think that you have a good topic.
Hi Jeanne and Yvonne! I’m glad you found it helpful.
7 Watch Free Episodes // Jun 16, 2007 at
Congrats on the link from Lorelle!
Paula
8 The Marketing Agency Talk » Blog Archive » 4 Tips to a Powerful Brochure // Jun 16, 2007 at
[…] need attention-grabbing headline to grab attention. 80% of the people read the headline and only decide thereafter if to read the […]
9 Weekly Digest: Guest Blogging on Problogger, Prejudice, WordPress News and Contests, Blog Design, and Special Invitation to a Party | Quentin Brown // Jun 17, 2007 at
[…] Writing Thoughts wrote “How a Good Headline Can Change Your Writing Success” and included an article I’m especially proud of writing, Writing Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles on Your Blog, on a list of great articles about writing effective headlines and titles for your blog posts. […]
10 Vivienne Quek // Jul 10, 2007 at
Hi Laura
Just wrote a similar topic How to Write Headlines That Sell and linked to this article of yours.:)
11 How To Write Headlines That Sell · Versa Creations Marketing & Advertising Blog // Jul 10, 2007 at
[…] copywriter who shares her experience at Writing Thoughts, and she has also voiced her opinions on how a good headline can change your writing success at her […]
12 WritingThoughts » Blog Archive » Captivating Conclusions can Retain Readers // Oct 16, 2007 at
[…] There have been a lot of posts about writing captivating headings. I’ve even written about the importance of headlines myself. […]
13 Mary Ann // May 26, 2009 at
Good keyword phrases will give you a good position in search engine results, but if you have a poor headline, readers will ignore your site listed at number one on the page. Instead they will eagerly click on the site listed at number ten and right at the bottom of the page, simply because it has a more catchy interesting headline.
14 Why Your Readers Don’t Respond : WritingThoughts // Jan 20, 2012 at
[…] headline is hot. Your writing rocks. Your topic fits–yet none of your readers ever *do* anything at all. Why […]
15 Weekly Digest: Guest Blogging on Problogger, Prejudice, WordPress News and Contests, Blog Design, and Special Invitation to a Party « Lorelle on WordPress // Jun 10, 2013 at
[…] Writing Thoughts wrote “How a Good Headline Can Change Your Writing Success” and included an article I’m especially proud of writing, Writing Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles on Your Blog, on a list of great articles about writing effective headlines and titles for your blog posts. […]
16 How to Grab and Hold Your Reader’s Attention Online // Mar 13, 2015 at
[…] There have been dozens of posts on how to write a great headline, so I won’t reinvent the wheel here. I’ve already published a great list of five articles to help you write better headlines. You can find that post here. […]
17 10 Ways to Make a Dull Topic Sizzle // Aug 21, 2015 at
[…] Pay attention to the headline. The headline is the first thing your reader sees. An engaging headline makes the difference between content that is read and content that is ignored. […]