5 Tips To Make 8 Out of 10 Cats Prefer Your Headlines

Content sometimes writes itself, ask the best content generators on the planet and they’ll inform you that their job is just a natural progression of placing the correct words in the right order. Writing a headline, however, to grab the users attention and read that tasty content is, somewhat, a different beast altogether.

If your well-crafted content is ever going to be noticed then you need to give adequate attention to the most important of soft-hooks to reel them in. Headlines in blogs, articles, press releases and social media content should not always rely on SEO keyword stuffing. Sure, if you can fit the keyword of your choice within your catchy headline then all the better. But to-be-honest, keyword placement should never take the shine of a well-crafted headline.

I’m going to list 5 tips, to help you gain a better understanding as to why headline writing should be at the forefront of any future content generation.

1. There are people out there already that can mentor yourself into becoming a perfected content writer and foremost a unique headline writer. They are people whom I have followed online for a matter of years and ultimately respect their work deeply. One such person, is none other than Lyndon Antcliff an incredible writer and diverse thinker. If you are going to learn from someone about headline creation then why not learn from the best-in-the-business, is what I say.

2. Don’t shy from controversy within your headline! Obviously, try and stay within the boundaries of good taste but a controversial headline will always catch the eye. Don’t be controversial just for controversial’s sake. If your going on a rant then fine, but remember that people will read it for what it is, a rant is a rant, if your going to be controversial then your going to need more substance within your content than just your own opinion.

3. Don’t start your headline with, “Secrets of [your choice keywords] Revealed”. It’s old, it has been done a squillion, million times and any marketing guru tring to tell you otherwise is lying. Fact is, people that fall for this type of headline is probably not going to subscribe, link, buy, sign-up to your content anyway … their tyre-kickers, time-waters, or most probably, content scrapers looking for a trackback link to your content.

4. Try and get into the head of your reader. No, I’m not talking any voodoo, psychobabble, just trying to understand the relationship better of whom your target audience might be. Your headline is the exposed pulse between a future reader and yourself, if you manage it correctly, a person will revisit your content over and over again. If you alienate from the get-go, then it is a near certainty they’ll give you and your site a wide-berth. Understand what type of reader your communicating with and also which type of reader you wish to hang around.

5. Avoid critisism of your headlines like the plaugue, once they are drafted onto the social media sites such as digg, reddit and the rest, your headline and content is now fair game for both appraisal and ridicule in the same breath. Don’t take scathing attacks personally, you can’t please everyone nor should you even attempt to try, remember your goal is to attract readers that you wish to hang around, everything else is just a potential knotch-up in your bounce rate ratio.