Writing a great headline takes time, practice and a good dose of empathy. The ability to think from the reader’s perspective and imagine what would jump out at them, grab their attention and make them want to click is the key to a top headline.
When crafting a headline, consider how it will appear across different platforms and in different locations. Each platform has a different outcome and success criteria, so the headline needs to be adapted for each.
Whether on Facebook, Twitter or in search results, the headline should be impactful and offer clear benefit for the reader to entice them to click. This means leveraging impact words, like why and how, that communicate the value of reading your article.
Shorter is better, but don’t skimp on the information. Keep in mind that readers are by and large skimmers, so a brief but arresting headline is the best way to encourage them to go deeper into your story.
Also, remember that your headline will become part of the post’s url (Uniform Resource Locator), so it’s important to have as much “Google Juice” at the front of the headline as possible. The first few words of the headline will also be the first few words in the post’s snippet on social media, so if you can get your most enticing keywords at the front of the headline, that’s a win.
We recommend going long wherever truncation isn’t an issue, that is, social posts and