Source: https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/03/21/10-tips-for-writing-effective-headlines-for-the-web/
Spending a little time looking for the right headline creates a lot of difference. The headline is an important part of a news or blog post as it is what attracts readers and visitors to your website, hence it should never be overlooked.
Effective headline writing tips for web
An excellent headline pulls in a lot of clicks on your article whenever people sees it and it ensures that your effort in writing the article doesn’t go to waste. Here are a few areas to think about when writing headlines:
Descriptive and compelling
When writing a headline, be sure to make it so that the people who reads it can tell what they can expect from the article. Headlines have big effect on rankings too, so be sure to create a descriptive and compelling headlines.
Avoid creating clickbait headlines
Clickbaits can be defined in various ways, however, crappy clickbaits are easy to spot.
Clickbaits can also be defined as headlines that don’t deliver on their promises – too much hyperbole, tips on SEO that promises revolutionary marketing strategies and so on.
While headlines do need to be enticing, you still need to balance it out and not overdo it.
Headlines have to work on their own
Sometimes, it gets too easy for us to think that the articles we write placed on top of the articles and forget that they are often seen out of this context.
They will be seen in tweets, newsletters and on other social media newsfeeds as well as the results pages of search engines. In this case, we can see that they are competing for attention with a lot of other articles and your potential readers will only have a short amount of time to scan and click so they need to be able to work alone.
Headline length
Your headline length will be limited in characters depending on the search engines:
- Google only shows the first 55-60 characters of a page title so it is important to limit your characters to this ideal length to avoid getting truncated.
- Consider the limits on social media posts
- Email newsletters also varies according to the device or email program your subscribers are using. Therefore, shorter headlines are more likely to be viewed in full.
- Consider the readability of your headline. Shorter headlines are easier to read and digest.
Headlines should deliver promises
Do not promise what you can’t deliver. This also ties in with clickbait point to an extent. Yes, you can write a good headline and not deliver on the content, but be sure to avoid this. If you plan on getting bold with your headline, you need to be completely confident that the content matches your title.
Be concise
Make every word count. If a word is not essential to the title, remove it.
Find out what works and learn from it
Be aware that what works on social media may not necessarily work in terms of traffic, leads or conversions. However, there will always be some factors that are common which can help you create better headlines.
Keywords
It is important to add your keywords on your headline. This way, viewers will be able to identify the purpose of your article. This will help in ranking and it’s more likely to be used as anchor text if people link back to your site.
Don’t be afraid of lists
It may be easy to mock the listicle, but it is a fact that they work well online. Lists work well with most people as it tells them that the articles has a defined structure and therefore, easy to read.
Collaborate on headlines
Sometimes, even when you come up with a good headline idea, it also helps a lot to discuss with your colleagues and bounce the idea around. You may have good idea already, but maybe someone else has a better one.
