Your content fails to convert because your headline is bad
You may have written the BEST content in the world, but if the headline isn’t good enough to make the audience click, your content will never be read. An incredible 90.63% of online content receives zero traffic from Google. So what can you do to ensure your content is in the minority that is read?
Idea 1: get inspiration from some headline templates
Headlines may only be a few words but they are the most important part of your copy, because they entice your audience to click, so they read your amazing content and convert.
Full disclosure: I find headlines the hardest thing to write, and as something I find challenging, I’ve dedicated a lot of time to upskilling in this area. Reading various books and taking part in specialist training, I’ve taken the lessons learned and tested them within my own business to see what does/doesn’t work.
These templates consistently secure the click, so next time you’re struggling to think of a headline that converts, try applying them to the theme of your content:
🧁How to get…
🧁How to…in as little as…even if…
🧁How every…can…
🧁X ways to…
🧁X mistakes every…
🧁WARNING:…
🧁The best way to…
🧁What…can teach us about…
🧁[insert question]?
🧁Avoid [problem] with…
🧁Get [benefit] with…
🧁x warning signs that…
🧁The secret to…
🧁Why…believes…
🧁[keyword]…
| TEMPLATE: headlines |
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| Download your copy… |
Idea 2: use a headline analyser tool
These are great for helping you understand why your current headline isn’t working, and how it can be improved. There are loads of free tools available (just google ‘headline analyser tool’) but the ones I use are:
For example:
Idea 3: tweak, test, and refine
Within marketing we’re taught about A/B testing to optimise campaigns. But there’s also C/D/E/F/G/H/I/J/K…etc. Essentially, keep tweaking, testing, and refining your headlines until you find what works for your audience.
For 3 years I wrote a blog all about content marketing. Analysis of the click-through rates showed that for my business:
🧁10 is the magic number: analysing my most popular posts, the average number of words in their headlines is 10, with a range from 6 to 13.
🧁Questions attract the most views: because answering the questions in your audience’s mind is the best way to encourage that click.
🧁Use ‘How to…’ to educate: if you’re looking to demonstrate thought leadership, starting your headline with ‘How to…’ if a great way to draw the audience in.
🧁‘What’ is my power word: looking at my top 100 posts, about 40% start with the word ‘What’ – again, because it’s more educational content.
🧁Keywords matter: usually we talk about using keywords to boost SEO, but ultimately that’s because people are actively interested in, and searching on these words (so use them!).
🧁Play it straight and to the point: cryptic, fun or fluffy headlines didn’t get the same engagement as those that state exactly what the piece was about.
🧁It doesn’t all have to be about business: one of my most popular posts is ‘Where do you get your shoes from?’, so think about how you could use your content to show some personality too.
Want to learn more about how to write content that converts?
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🧁Learn more about content creation for exit.
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