Write headlines that make people click on your work
People don’t click on boring headlines.
You can have the best content ever; if your title isn’t convincing enough, it’ll never get the attention it might deserve. Too many great articles are lost because of a poor headline.
If you want yours to stand out, you must start practising headline writing.
I’ve recently written about what qualities great headlines have in common. But this article will be about how you can master the skill of headline writing. Because it’s not enough to understand what a great headline can look like. To improve, you need to learn how to craft them by yourself.
So here’s how.
The exact flow of your complete headline practice
At the beginning of my journey, my headlines sucked.
No wonder I didn’t have many readers.
But once I started to put more time into my headline practice, this is what happened:
To get better in any skill, you need to practice it.
As Ayodeji Awosike put it:
I’ve written more than 15,000 headlines since I’ve started writing. Only one per cent of them are really good. Those one per cent of headlines I’ve written created 100 percent of my viral successes. Every single morning, I write down 10 ideas for headlines. […] I promise, if you don’t learn how to write good headlines, you’ll never have a career as a blogger. Never. So do I.
How and where to craft spiky headlines
There’s no secret sauce for headline writing: you need to put some work in.
From now on, try to craft ten headline variations for each article you write. This way, you train your mind to create headlines, and you’ll inevitably get better at it.
Implement 2–3 headline qualities into each of your titles.
In a nutshell, great headlines:
- Focus on the readers and deliver some benefit — If You Want to Be Rich, Spend Your Time Buying Assets
- Are broad enough to attract a large audience — 9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year
- Enable the reader to share it with others because the article either makes them look smart or helpful — The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career
- Bring some novelty in your point of view — Self-improvement has made me worse
- Display either famous people or self-proof — Elon Musk’s 2 Rules For Learning Anything Faster
- Evoke emotions — Today I Learned Something About My Boyfriend That No Girl Should Ever Have to Discover
You can write your headlines on a sheet of paper, in Trello, in an excel sheet, or in any other place you feel comfortable. Opt for a tool you’ll want to rely on every single time you sit down to write.
I use RoamResearch for my headline practice. This is what it looks like.
When you’re ready with your ten headline variations, choose the one you’d click on.
The thing is, the practice isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ll get frustrated by not having enough headline variations. You might see that your titles suck. You might want to stop the practice. And your feelings are valid.
But practicing is the only way to improve. Writing ten headline variations for each article enables you to grow exponentially. While most people will write only ten headlines for ten articles, by that time, you’ll have written 100 titles.
Get more eyes on your work
If you’ve written many headlines and struggle to choose the best, you can ask for some help. Don’t hesitate to share your work with some friends, family members, and also fellow writers.
You can even organize a slack group for headline practice. In the Writing Online Accelerator, my students form groups even after the course and work together.
When I started to write, I did the work for myself. I wrote to fellow writers, and we started a Slack group for accountancy and writing practice. Every time I struggled with my headings, I asked my peers what they thought:
The only tool you need to master headline writing
In the last step of your practice, you’d want to further improve the headline you’ve picked. You can do so by replacing words with synonyms or adding power words, such as genius, unexpected, mind-changing, and so on.
CoSchedule will help you with this. (No need to buy the full version).
The platform analyses your titles and gives you a score. Anything under the score of 70 needs more work. Above 70, you’re good to go.
All you need to do is copy-paste the headline of your choice to the “Write your headline here…” window. If you’re not yet content with the outcome, add the updated version of your heading to the same place and reanalyze it.
The free version of CoSchedule is more than enough. You don’t need to subscribe to the pro version.
To show you an example, the title below says, “This mind-changing concept shows it’s never too late to become your best self.” I’ve got a headline score of 74, which is good, but it can still be better.
An alternative, “This mind-changing discovery shows you’re never too old to become your best self,” already has a score of 75. With one more tweak, “This mind-changing discovery shows you’re never too old to become better,” the score is 76.
Yet, if you don’t like the version that has only a slightly higher score, you can still decide on a headline with a lower score, given that it’s above 70.
Don’t stop here
Your writing starts with the headline. You convince people to click on your work with the headline. Then you hook them in with your introduction and main part.
But you encourage them to stay and come back for more with your Call-to-Action at the end of each article.
Yet most writers don’t have a CTA and don’t start building an email list from day 1. They lose hundreds of readers who’d be genuinely interested in their work.
In this free 5-week course, I exactly show you how you can set up your writing for audience growth.
Remember the essence
Writing great headlines takes time and practice.
To create outstanding titles, you’ll need to spend more quality time with your potential headlines.
You can apply this by getting a sheet and adding ten headline variations for each of your articles. The practice is hard. Whatever you feel, your emotions are valid.
If you want to take your practice one step further, ask for the opinion of others. You can do so in a slack group or via 1-on-1 messaging.
Improve and finalise the best title version with CoSchedule.
Without great headlines, you’ll have a hard time attracting readers.
But if you put in the work and practice, you’ll be ahead of 90% of the bloggers.
Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?
Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.