COMMENTS
In my opinion, these headlines strategies can and should be applied to Social Media updates which also need to be succinct and engaging. Too often such updates are merely descriptive and one-dimensional.
It's really useful to mine your own inbox and look at which subject lines YOU actually opened then follow that sender's lead in crafting your own headlines, subject lines and tweets.
<a href="http://www.nakedmm.com/2010/07/how-to-get-people-to-do-what-you-want-the-top-5-how-tos-for-effective-headlines/
">Here are my top 5 how-to's for effective headlines
Headlines are the reason I will stop and read an article or not. Thanks for the information an how I can make mine more effective.
Headlines are not just a marketing gimmick though. They make a promise re what readers will find. Break that promise by overselling in the headline and you have irritated readers.
For example this article's headline is 7 Ways. I thought this article would give prompts for headline writing. Instead it's a list. You got me to click and comment but not for the right reasons.
Thank you for the great insight. We have been using many of these tips for our Volusion based
office furniture website.
A catchy headline is what makes or breaks your article. It's what people read first and if it does not catch their interest then they will be skipping your article.
Thanks for grouping these into a heading "type".
that for sure i got to learn it to write it and get catchy targetted traffic rather than idiot traffic.
Langsing
This is a great article. Headlines might be the most important aspect in attracting viewers
Thanks for this, I was having a lot of trouble coming up with some catchy headlines and was using google to find the best ways to make them and I came across this post very big help :)
I think this is a great article because many people don't think about how hard it is to make eye-catching headlines. I haven't come across any good headlines in a while; they usually have to have something appealing before I click to read the story. Usually when I do read articles, they deal with health or careers. I click on them because there is always something new changing in the health industry and I think it’s important to be aware of all the new things happening in the medial world. I also click things dealing with careers or education, because I'm a college student and I'm interested in knowing what jobs and degrees have a bright outlook.
It is so true that writing great headlines can be really tricky. I really appreciated how you broke them down into groups and gave them each a special little name :) This article is helpful and inspirational. I think I'm gonna go write some headlines.
I think this is really good, but it should in some way relate to the topic. My opinion. I have gone looking for a lot of websites to find a topic that has no relation to the subject I am looing for..
Great article. Totally spot on. The power of a great headline can not be emphasized enough. Every advertising agency, newspaper and marketing department knows this unequivocally.
I recently viewed a webinar from MarketingExperiements and the following 3 points stood out as most importantant in crafting an effective headline,
#1 Focus the interest of the customers - What they get versus What to do. "Get" is a good lead in word.
#2 The header is not meant to 'sell', but to get their attention and read the next line. Treat it like an opener in a network situation.
#3Make sure you are "Point First" - not middle or end (i.e. what they get in the first part of the headline, rather than in the middle or end).
Marissa, this is a really insightful and inventive post--I love the way you have grouped these forms into kinds of personalities, which is a fun way of thinking about them, but also pretty smart. The point of a good headline is to provide a kind of compelling personality to the article, and I think you are spot on with that. I agree with some here that the pay off better be good (I think it is just fine in this post), and that is something worth addressing, or at least, the headline better be accurate. I caution this only because the more creative we get, the farther we can sometimes wander from what we are actually writing about.
Is anyone finding that many of these headline techniques are simply overused? Seems twitter and my readers are clogged with "8 ways to"-style headlines.
I agree with @Rebekah and @Elisabeth that headlines need to be reader-centric and they act as a promise. Many times, it seems, the writer ended up at a different destination than he intended when he wrote the headline, then the story. Quite natural when you're thinking and processing while writing, but revise the headline to match your content!