You can choose the best content and compose the best emails or social media posts about it. However, all of that is worthless if nobody ends up clicking and reading your blog articles. And that’s exactly what happens when your headline isn’t worded appealingly enough. A gripping headline is therefore the be-all and end-all if you want to do successful content marketing . Easier said than done, you might be thinking. This is exactly why we have put together a series of tips for you to formulate successful headlines.
Formulate headlines: Good titles for blogs
A corporate blog gives your company a face. The articles ensure that potential customers find your company and promote topic-oriented communication. Also, when you publish good and continuously optimized posts, you show search engines that your blog is dynamic.
Use the following tips to motivate potential readers to click on your articles with well-formulated headlines:
Find a working title and gradually specify it
Your perfect headline doesn’t have to be in place before you’ve written your article. It is easier to start with a working title and develop it further as you write. The more you delve into the topic, the better headline ideas you’ll come up with. Be very specific in your working title, because then it will serve as a common thread for your text.
Take professional photos , for example, is a very unspecific headline.
Instead, your working title could be How to Set Your Camera for Any Light or A Guide to Perfect Portrait Shots .
Less is more: Don’t use clickbait
With social media, clickbait has also become popular. Surely you’ve read headlines like This thing will change your life or you got a call – what happened next is just unbelievable .
With headlines like this, your expectations will skyrocket – and then they’re usually disappointed. The result is a high jump or bounce rate , which you certainly do not want to achieve for your website.
Emphasize the added value and remain authentic
Instead of relying on clickbait, it is better to emphasize the actual added value of your blog article and then to offer this with your article through good, valuable content. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Instead, state that your article provides specific solutions to a problem.
This works with Reasons why… or How you can… .
You should also formulate your headline so precisely that it can also be understood without context – for example when it appears in the news feed of a social media site.
The more specific the better: Explain the format
The explanation of the format in parentheses after the title contributes to its accuracy. This also ensures that you only raise expectations that you can meet.
For example, you can add [Interview], [Podcast] or [Infographic] to your title. If you don’t like this presentation, you can start your headline with, for example
- A tutorial for…
- A video that explains…
- A guide to…
This is also helpful if your headline is read on a mobile device. Because the user can decide directly whether he can and wants to call up the selected format in his current situation.
Keep it short and concise: avoid cutting off the headline
There is no precise rule as to how long a headline should be. However, you can use the platform on which you want to use the headline as a guide:
- For example, Google will display 70 characters before the search result is truncated. You should therefore stay within this framework when optimizing your headline for search engines.
- On Twitter it can be 140 characters, but if you move below that, a user can add their own comment to a retweet.
An analysis by HubSpot showed that headlines of 8 to 12 words were most popular on Twitter, while those of 12 to 14 were most popular on Facebook.
You can easily shorten titles by omitting filler words. So a headline can take place
In 10 steps we will explain how to formulate emails perfectly in email marketing
also
Email marketing: 10 steps to the perfect email
ring.
Are you also interested in how to write good emails? Then this article for companies will help you:
Be personal (questions or statements)
Personal speeches are always well received. This is because the reader gets the feeling that the article does not deal with the problems of any Internet user, but with his own.
You can awaken this feeling perfectly with questions. Think about what question your reader might be asking themselves and ask them that exact question in the headline.
Choose the right words
Not only the content of the headline counts, the choice of words is also very important. This should not only correspond to your persona , but be expressive and appealing. For example, you could work with alliteration such as Clever Content Marketing ” or use strong words such as
- ingenious
- suddenly
- at last
Expressions that signal urgency, exclusivity, or scarcity can also be effective—because they evoke emotion when reading. In general, adverbs, adjectives and verbs are well received.
Work with numbers and lists
5 examples… , 7 must-dos… or 8 valuable tips … are good examples that fulfill several of the above points.
They are precise and very accurately describe the added value of the item. You also provide information about the structure of the article, which will most likely contribute to the good readability of the article.
Don’t be a lone wolf and brainstorm with colleagues
Even if you take all the tips to heart, there will still be days when you’re less creative than usual. Discussing it with colleagues can often help to identify and correct weaknesses in a headline. You should definitely take the time!
An extra tip: Use help for your daily work
Just look at the headlines of our inbound marketing blog! There is bound to be one or two titles that will inspire you…
jfkcash Inbound Marketing Blog
In our e-book we explain to you free of charge and without obligation what to consider when creating content and how you can optimize your content:
In addition to the checklist, these guidelines will help you in practice and round off the topic of blogging perfectly:
Conclusion
It is already stated in the introduction: the best text is worthless if it is not read. That is why the headline is an extremely important part of every article in the content marketing process. Our few tips can help to make the big difference – and thus increase your click-through rates with successful headlines.