How To Write Better Sales Headlines
Did you know that on average for every 10 people that land on your page, 8 of them will read your headline, but only 2 of them will actually go on to read the rest of the article. This is why creating mind blowing, attention grabbing, ultra creative headlines is an absolute must.
Even if you only increase that number from 2 to 3, that's 10% more reads to your article from just changing a few words.
While there is no 100% fool proof method to creating a headline that will work (without extensive testing of course) there are some simple formats you can follow that have been proven to work time and time again. Here are 7 formats that have been tried and tested and are proven to work in any niche, for any person.
The "How To" - (eg: How to improve your golf swing by 50 yards) Humans love information, and when you start off your post with a "How To" you are instantly telling the person that your article is giving content (and more than that, value). While this only works if you are writing a tutorial type post, it gets straight to the point and people can appreciate that. Sites like "e-How" have created their entire website and business model around the simple concept of "how to".
The List Method - (eg: 7 ways to write mind blowing headlines) People love lists. Think about all the TV shows that are based around top 10 countdowns. It states a clear beginning and end, which allows the visitor to gauge their time and effort (which is crucial to understand when thinking about your audience). Try to make the number uneven and stick out so people are more interested. Think "101 ways to do something".
Relate The Headline to Current Events or Mainstream Media - (eg. The first rule of copyblogger) The power of association is unbelievable and will have people reading through just to see how you pulled it off. Everyone has seen the movie "Fight Club" and one of the most recognizable things from that movie is the 8 rules. Over at Copyblogger.com, a writer wrote a piece called "The first rule of copyblogger", used a giant picture of Brad Pitt, and framed the article around the 8 rules of fight club. It was extremely entertaining, and still accomplished what she was trying to portray.
Use Play on Words - (eg: The Beauty and the Blog) People love creativity, and it gives them the sense that you are upbeat and fun to read. I read an article a little while back called "The Beauty and the Blog" and it was about the up's and down's of designing your blog. Everyone knows the story of the Beauty and the Beast, and this play on words allowed the author to be creative and still keep on track with the general idea of the post.
A word of caution is to make sure you relate your headline to the actual post itself. When i first started creating fun headlines, i would spend a good amount of time creating outrageous and creative headlines and then forget to thoroughly relate the headline to the post. If you write "The James Bond
Method to Writing Blog Posts" as your post title, make sure the post gets your main point across, but also explains how James Bond would do it. It seems like a simple idea, but many people fail to properly incorporate it in.
Lastly, have fun with it, creating headlines should be a creative process where you think up ideas that will persuade others. It shouldn't be mindless busy work that you dread doing.