Headlines, headlines! It's all in the headlines.
I just read a great article on headlines from Hubspot: "How to write catchy headlines and blog titles your readers can't resist."
Now, I don't know about you, but I happen to love finding online articles loaded with useful information like this one. I love it even more when authors cut the fat and/or get right to the meat. Such is not the case with the Hubspot article.
As I read through it, I found myself wanting to capture certain bits of information, stuff I could use in my business and for my work with clients.
But where to capture it all? Should I use a Word doc? A Google doc? A sticky note? A journal? (I'm a journal addict, so that option sounded realllll good for a moment.)
But then, I decided to capture the good stuff here, in this forum, on my blog. Now the information will always be neatly at hand, easy to find. And I'll also be able to share it with clients who need help with headlines.
With that said, I'm pleased to bring you a summary of the important points in the aforementioned Hubspot article. Write on and enjoy!
9 proven techniques from Hubspot for writing hot headlines
- Headlines with bracketed clarification perform better than headlines without. For instance, "[Free course] Get more YESes with The Yes Advantage."
- The word "template" happens to be the strongest performing "bracketed clarification," at least for Hubspot.
- Headlines with the word "photo" or "photos" perform better than headlines without.
- Headlines with the word "who" perform better than headlines without.
- On Twitter, headlines with 8-12 words garner the most shares.
- On Facebook, headlines with 12 or 14 words garner the most likes.
- Headline text of 70 or fewer characters is ideal for people looking at search results; if you use more than 70 characters, text will be cut off.
- Tweetable headlines get more clicks when they're in the 120-130 character range.
- Use keywords in the beginning of headlines to catch and keep the reader's attention.
There you go! Thanks, Hubspot!
Postscript
P.S. While copying the article's URL to share in this post, I noticed that the title in the URL does not match the title that we, the readers, see on the page.
Page title: How to write catchy headlines and blog titles your readers can't resist.
URL title: A simple formula for writing kick-ass titles-ht
I've written in to Hubspot to ask why, and will update this post when I receive a reply.
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