73 Easy Ways To Write A Headline That Will Reach Your Readers [FAKE] – HS

It’s common to overlook the importance of a headline. Whether you like it or not, a headline is what will determine how many people actually read your content. Even if your content is truly unique and innovative, a weak headline will ruin its chances of being super successful. This comes as a shock to far too many people. Fortunately, data and analytics combined with these 73 tips can help you write great headlines that will instantly capture the attention of your readers. We don’t want your content to go to waste because your headline didn’t perform well enough, so we’re here to make sure you can craft the most compelling headlines possible. [headline_studio_signup_shortcode]

1. Understand the Importance of Writing Great Headlines

Your headline makes your first impression with readers. A strong headline can drive more clicks. A weak one can send traffic away. That's why it's important to spend time getting them right. 25 headlines might sound like a lot. However, if anything, you could consider this the bare minimum. Some will be better than others. Some, in fact, will be downright terrible. That's okay though. You have to burn through bad ideas before you can find what works. Your brain was made for this. Headline generation is just another form of idea generation that forces you to use your brain’s reticular activating system (RAS) to inspire creativity. RAS is an important part of our brain that is used for things like breathing, sleeping, waking, and the beating of our hearts. It is basically the part of the brain that works when we aren't. By forcing ourselves to generate more than a few headlines, we put our brain to work using our RAS. We may think of 10 headlines right now, and then suddenly generate a few more when we aren't even trying (or while writing the post itself). This is your RAS at work. It is subconsciously providing you with creative ideas while you are busy doing other things. As much as we try to systematize it, creativity is often very spontaneous, and can actually get "better" with time. From Psychology Today:

The creative process moves through five stages. It begins with preparation--an analytical time when the basic information or skills are assembled. It continues on to incubation–a more intuitive and subconscious time in which you connect the dots in a default state. If you stick with it through perspiration, this process will eventually lead to revelation–the eureka experience when you literally feel the tumblers of your mind click into place and you say: 'A-ha, I have found the solution!' The creative process ends with production, a time when the insights are put into a useful form and shared with others.

Headline generation lives right there between incubation and perspiration. But, what's even more interesting is how our ideas develop over time. This is something that Tim Hurson calls the third third.

2. Follow the Rule of the Third Third

In his book, Think Better, Tim Hurson defines an interesting phenomenon that clearly proves why more headlines are better than just a few. One of his key points is the miracle of the third third. It works something like this: if you are looking to generate 100 different ideas, studies have shown that the ideas will generally fall into three different groups.

1. The first third (up to idea 33): This group will consist of the most obvious picks. They’ll be "typical" and won’t usually represent anything new or interesting. In other words, they will be the least creative. If you are like most bloggers, this is where most of your headlines come from. Oops!
2. The second third (idea 34 to 67): During the second third, your ideas will start to gain some momentum. You will begin to think more creatively and start to generate some actual "new ideas." But, don't stop there. Many of them will still be based on prior knowledge and experience.
3. In the third third (ideas 68 – 100): The final third will represent your best chance at coming up with a unique and innovative idea. During the first two thirds, you were able to exhaust the obvious ideas, forcing the new and unique to float to the top.

As you develop ideas, each new one will be more and more difficult to come by, but this is a good thing! Once the obvious ideas have been exhausted, you make room for the not-so-obvious. This is why repetition, time, and perseverance are so important to the idea generation process. My brainstorm clearly followed the rule of the third third. In the previous example, there is a clear example of the third third phenomenon at work. When you break down my headlines you can see that I clearly got more "desperate" and more creative toward the end. The winning headline actually came from my final third. It's pretty telling, and makes you wonder — what would have happened if I'd written 100? Malcom Gladwell is famous for telling us that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. The question here is how many headlines does it take to make a good one? If nothing else, we know that experience pays. By putting headlines into an idea generation process, we activate our RAS, push our creative comfort zone, and slowly get better at it over the long haul. You know what they say: practice does make perfect.

3. Start By Writing 10 Headlines

The first step is to start. Begin by writing out at least 10 headline ideas for your post. For this method to really work, it is important that you make these steps a habit. Even if you feel like the one you have is pretty good, force yourself to write at least ten more.

4. Next, Write 15 More Headlines

Now do it again. Write another 15 headlines.

5. Cross Out the Worst 15

Often, deciding what headline to not use will be easier than deciding which one to use. This is why it works so well to remove your least favorite right from the start.

6. Bold Your Top 5

Chances are, what's left are a few pretty good headlines, several boring ones, and maybe one or two great headlines. Choose your top five and make them bold.

7. Conduct a Poll

If you work in a writing team, or have an editor assigned to you, now might be the time to take advantage of them. Let them take a look at your list and decide which headline they think fits best. Match it to your list? How did it shake out?

8. Do an A/B Test

A/B testing is a great way to test our assumptions and our work. Rather than simply picking the headline that we like best, choose two and test them against one another. One way that we do this regularly is through our email software. We send our email with two different headlines and then see which performs the best. Of course, you'll have to have a headline selected at that point, but don't let that stop you from testing your work.