How to Write Headlines and Titles that Grab Attention
I discovered the classic business book, ‘Ogilvy on Advertising.’ The book is nearly 40 years old and yet his tips and comments on Headlines and Titles are still absolutely applicable today. In fact, I would go so far as saying nothing has really changed concerning headlines since Ogilvy wrote his book.
If you are a content creator inevitably you’re going to have to write headlines or titles for your content. I am not the best at writing headlines. I have struggled. In fact I struggled so bad coming up with good headlines that would make people click my stuff that I
went and spent like $150 bucks buying online tools that helped you analyze what’s being searched and what keywords are going to do the best for you.
I would spend hour after hour figuring out which one was gonna do potentially better according to this AI rating system. In the end I felt like I was just wasting a ton of time and I thought ‘why can’t I just have a simple framework? Some simple tips on how to make my headlines better?
I feel like that shouldn’t be like a hard thing. Just give me some general tips.
And that’s when I found this book by David Ogilvy who was like a master at advertising and marketing and headlines and I read it.
Even though the book is like 40 years old, it had some fantastic things to say when it comes to headlines so I want to give you a few of them.
Five times as many people will read your headline than actually look at the copy or the content of your post which is crazy.
5X
So if your headline isn’t selling your product or generating clicks then it doesn’t really matter what the content is or the image or the video that you created. It’s not gonna do good.
In fact Ogilvy says more than anything else – headlines are gonna determine the success of your content of a video above the copy, above the groundbreaking news, above all of it.
The headline is it. So here’s seven things that Ogilvy said to do and I started putting them in my headlines and they definitely work and they do a lot better.
First, promise the reader a benefit to engaging with your content right off the bat. If your content helps them do something, put it in the headline. If it’s going to point them to something they need to know, put it in the headline. The benefit should be front and center, right there, the first thing that everybody reads.
If you’ve got news or some sort of groundbreaking thing going on with your product or your service, if you just started something that’s brand new that the world needs to know about – that should be in the headline. It should be
there so that people see – hey this is a new thing you should engage with. This new thing, this is cool.
Add helpful information. Everybody loves things telling them how to make their, whatever it is, better. How to make more friends… Five things to say during a lull in the conversation… These things make people’s lives better so put that right in the headline so that people see – hey, here’s some helpful information. I would
like that helpful information.
Thank you very much.
Number four. Anything over 10 words – probably bad. You should keep it less than that. You should go from like four to seven words. Somewhere in there. That would be a fantastic headline size.
Anything over 10 words you’ve no longer got a headline. You’ve basically just started your content right there. It’s become an essay and people don’t
want to see an essay in a headline.
Number five. Use a specific in your headline rather than something general. “I implemented this one thing and lost 10 pounds.” Like that is an engaging thing.
“I implemented this thing and it did this…” These are the specifics and the audience will love you for that because that’s what will get them reading or looking or watching your post.
For some reason whenever you put something in the headline that has “quotes,” the audience retention of your headline goes up by 20%.
I don’t know why. I guess people think that it’s smart or maybe it’s wiser. It’s coming from a super famous person and therefore they should take note… but for whatever reason if you put something in quotes in your headline, it’s gonna do
better.
Finally if it’s local, then put that stuff in the headline so that people know it’s local. So if it’s your city or your town, use city names and road names or business names from your town right there in the headline so people see it and they think ‘oh, this is about me. I see that place all the time. I drive on this road all the time. I should read this because this pertains to me.’
It will engage more traffic with your specific audience because they want to know about it because it pertains to them.
So do it.
The worst thing that Ogilvy says you can do is to not use a headline at all. He basically says if you do this you might as well be throwing your time and your money out the window. Like it’s trash or something.
So you should definitely put in the headline.
If you haven’t read this book you surely should.
I’m out.
