Ever wondered why your blog and news articles don’t get read; your headline is key to getting your customers and clients to click your links and read your stuff.

So don’t be a sheep make your content stand out from the crowd by adopting some of these tips and tricks.

Headlines that contain numbers are usually more successful at attracting attention.  Possibly because numbers suggest a list of advice that will be quick and easy to access the information.  A low number will indicate you are specific and concise and a high number that you’re thorough and comprehensive.

Why should they read your article? What will they gain?  Give them a reason to click through.  Make them a promise of what you’re offering; for example ‘How to…”

Headlines that pose a question can be very successful, particularly if your reader can’t say no to whatever question you are asking.

Interestingly a negative headline often performs better than a positive one – for example ‘The worst marketing errors…’  This is possibly the case because superlatives such as ‘greatest’ and ‘best’ are overused and therefore often ignored.

Adjectives can grab attention, so words like … essential, fun, incredible can intrigue people and encourage them to click your link.

For some reason a hyphen or a colon can increase the click through rate on a headline.

Only 1 in 5 people who see your headline will read beyond the title, so getting your headline to be attention grabbing can mean a huge difference in the number of people reading your posts.  The other thing to consider about keeping it short is that it’s great for social media and SEO.  Short headlines are easier to share and won’t get truncated in search engine results.

Emotional language creates a very predictable response. Headlines that affect very strong emotions — whether positive or negative — often get the best results. If your headline falls in the middle of these extremes, it’ll probably get less traction.

I like CoSchedules Free Headline Analyser Tool.  You type your headline in and it will give you a score and suggestions on how you can improve.  There’s also a handy bank of words such as Power Words and Emotional Words to help you get the perfect headline.

I put the headline in for this blog and here are the results. I amended my headline to add the word “Fantastic’ to bump up it’s rating

If you want to use CoSchedules Headline Analyser just click this link.

So my advice is to take time over your headline it really matters; your blog article may be great but your headline is key to getting it read