5 Simple Tips for Writing Better Titles and Headlines
What are some tips that you can use right away to improve your blog or website’s click through rate? A good headline and Titles is essential if you want more of your target audience to read, share, and click on what you post.
Michael is a professional translator and a lifetime student of languages. He also runs a blog about language learning. At the moment he is preparing to move to Germany, so if you have any cool tips for someone who wants to learn German, please leave him a comment below 🙂
Without further ado, here are 5 tips on how to write better titles and headlines:
1) Make It Real
Don’t get too creative with your headings – they should convey literal information that is relevant. Do not try to be overly clever or unique. Even though there are no strict rules when it comes to writing catchy titles, most readers will feel cheated if they found out that the title was clickbait after all. A good exercise can be done in order to separate potential clickbait from legitimate titles by asking you “Is this title relevant to the article?” before writing it down.
Here are some examples to illustrate this point:
Not This: The Silliest Pun in the Universe! 10 One-Liners That Will Make You Laugh Again
This: The Most Ridiculous One-Liner Jokes of All Time
The latter is far more accurate, informative, and clear. It also doesn’t promise something that the article won’t deliver.
2) Ask Questions or Use Adverbs?
Don’t ask questions when stating facts will do just fine – especially if you want to create a sense of curiosity. Saying that something is “stunning” or “amazing” will hardly evoke an emotional response, but asking whether or not it’s “the most stunning” thing ever may just do the trick. Mundane statements are best served with adverbs – anything that makes it sound more extravagant than necessary should be rewritten in order to sound less hyperbolic.
3) Don’t Make It All about You
This is a common “don’t” in most writing guides and for good reason: it’s annoying and unappealing to read. Some bloggers assume that their blog will be successful just because they’re posting about themselves, but unless you’re a celebrity this won’t apply to you. Readers want to learn something new or be entertained – they don’t care about your problems or achievements. So, when writing headlines its best not to use the words “I”, “my”, etc. Think of how excited readers would feel if they saw one of these titles.
4) Measure Your Titles in Word Count
When you need to write a title for an article, try and keep it under 20-25 words. Why? It’s the average amount of words that most readers will spend on your article before deciding whether or not to read further. You can also use this information when creating titles for multiple posts – vary them enough so that they’re all unique, but don’t go overboard and include too many keywords. Just like with Google searches, most people will click on the first few results by skimming their eyes across them rather than searching through hundreds of pages carefully.
5) Have Fun with Language
Most people would agree that “titles” and “headlines” aren’t exactly what are meant by “fun with language”, but they are the most appropriate place to use it. Try and experiment with unusual spellings, exceptions in punctuation, sentence structure, etc. Just be careful not to go too crazy – there is a fine line between “cute” and “annoying”.
Don’t be afraid of using color or font size in order to create attention – these simple changes can make all the difference. You might want to include some text in your titles so that readers understand it faster when they skim through their list of articles. For example:
Conclusion:
Try to include one of these elements in your titles – it doesn’t have to be the first thing that comes into your mind, but just try and think “How can I make this sound more interesting?” before you click on “Publish”.