Are Your Headlines & Titles Driving Potential Customers Away?
You’ve spent days researching your next blog post. You’ve double-checked all facts, reworded each fragment very carefully and analyzed and improved your CTAs.
At the end of this lengthy, time-consuming process, you’ve redirected your last drop of energy towards the headline.
While trying to come up with the perfect title, you finally realize that creativity has flown out the window. Should you sacrifice a few more hours of sleep to draft several versions and pick the most suitable one, or should you just make a quality compromise and settle for a headline that doesn’t do your body copy any justice?
Why Headlines Will Always Matter (A Great Deal)
We can all agree that an informative, original, and creative headline marks the beginning of a fulfilling reading experience. What you may not know is that the quality of your headlines is influencing your conversion rates a great deal.
New research conducted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism introduces a set of interesting findings cited by Marketing Land.
According to this source, 51% of the visitors who land on search sites looking for fresh news affirmed that an interesting, catchy headline represented the reason they chose to click on a certain story. The source of the information and the social signals linked to it seem to be less important. 37% of the respondents said they clicked on web content from a website that they knew and trusted while only 11% revealed that they clicked on a story recommended by a person in their social circle. These numbers are easy to interpret, and the lesson that you need to learn and apply is pretty straightforward: Do you want to rewrite your success story? Start by writing better headlines!
What Should You Expect from a Good Headline?
Aside from its originality and high dosage of creativity, what are the other key aspects that separate good headlines from terrible ones? According to a guide published by Columbia University, good titles must be correct (in implications and facts), should command attention, and lead to a deeper connection with the audience. They must also match or set the tone of the written material. While all the pieces of the puzzle are equally important, do keep in mind that you should never sacrifice accuracy on the altar of creativity.
5 Categories of Bad Headlines That You Should Avoid at All Costs
Headlines with puzzling, unintended meanings are some of your most dreaded enemies, which could easily affect your reputation and credibility on any niche. If you’re striving to improve your headline writing skills, here are a few bad examples that you should analyze before putting pen to paper.
1. The Ridiculous, Illogical and Unintentionally Hilarious Headline
In a recent post, Diply rounds up some of the most unbelievably ludicrous headlines that you might have read so far. As the result of illogical thinking or a failed attempt to explore the power of the dramatic, situational or verbal irony for emphasis, these headlines make us raise an eyebrow and ask ourselves: What were the authors thinking? One-of-a-kind pearls of wisdom such as “Mayor Parris to Homeless: Go Home”, “Threat Disrupts Plans to Meet about Threats”, “One-Armed Man Applauds the Kindness of Strangers” make us want to rethink our titles and question our logic over and over again to avoid such catastrophic public displays of ignorance and negligence.
2. The Dull Headline That Nobody Has Time For
People have very little desire to invest their time, patience, and energy in reading activities that cannot be associated with groundbreaking revelations. They want to get the latest info on high-interest topics that could influence their quality of life (career opportunities, promotions and discounts, special events that they may be interested in and so on). At the same time, they ignore headlines covering mundane facts and have very little or no desire to read headlines that they’ve seen on dozens of other websites. A lack of originality expressed through the headline may be an accurate indicator of the body copy standards. As we have stated in a previous post, people usually judge a book by its cover, and won’t hesitate to evaluate your piece without actually reading it based on the attractiveness of its title. Dull headlines are your worst enemy, so take all the time you need to make your final version eye-pleasing, intelligible and as creative as possible.
3. The Mysteriously Incomplete Headline
Let’s assume that you open the newspaper, or land on a website and stumble across the following headline: Board of Directors Meeting Takes Place. So what? Why is this event a matter of great importance? Does it lead to massive layoffs or a string of promotions? Why should we, the readers, care about it (and move on to the body copy)? You may be inclined to think that an aura of mystery expressed through your title may compel your readers to read, or at least scan your piece. Unfortunately, this is not how it works. You have to provide a minimal amount of information to arouse the curiosity of your audience. Highlight the reasons why they need to take a closer look at your article and deliver the promise of a captivating, useful reading experience.
4. The Headline with an Information Overdose
Poles apart, headlines containing massive amounts of information are equally puzzling, annoying and ineffective. We can all name more than a few books with incredibly long, hard to grasp titles. The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade by Peter Weiss, and Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems by David Rakoff are only two of the most eloquent examples that come to mind. At a first glance, you will probably be asking yourself the following question: who would actually read these books? After all, if a writer has a hard time summarizing his thoughts into a great title, the quality of his overall work may very well be truly questionable. Nobody is particularly interested in verbose sentences, and this is something that you should take into consideration before delivering the final version of your headline.
We can all recognize those awfully long titles featuring percentages, dates, and tons of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs used as embellishments. To avoid crafting a headline that will make your readers bounce off your page, rewrite your title until you finally manage to convey your message in as few words as possible. This way, you will manage to ditch unnecessary adornments and express your ideas clearly and concisely.
5. Confusing Headline
Some headlines are downright illogical and funny (revisit the examples listed above, in the first set of bad titles) while others are simply confusing and leave you wondering: Who did what? What just happened? Why am I reading this?
“Huh?”-inducing headlines such as “Dole and Bush Dead Even in Kansas Poles” or “Clinic Gives Poor Free Legal Help” are the perfect examples illustrating this category. Quite often, puzzling titles represent the end-result of faulty punctuation. Some of the funniest mistakes that you may encounter online or offline show you how a comma can change everything. As a matter of fact, the difference between Let’s Eat Grandma and Let’s Eat, Grandma suggests the fact that a comma may even save lives, and help you keep your headlines clear and error-free.
Can You Use Certain Patterns without Losing Your Own Voice?
Great headlines are a magnet for readers. These days, you can rely on plenty of sure-fire formulas that you can personalize as you see it to seduce your public. Versions promising a quick, painless solution to a pressing problem, introducing a secret or a little-known fact that can be beneficial for your audience, or acting like a challenge to your prospects will offer you great results in the long term. If, for some reason or another, you feel unable to personalize these patterns and take them to the next level to recreate the perfect headline, hire a team of skilled copywriters and achieve success without spending a dime on tiresome DIY trial-and-error processes.