The basis of all great books are great headlines.
Headlines grab our attention.
They make us want to read more.
The headline is the part that catches your readers’ eyes. It makes them stop their web browsing, multitasking or the several hundred other things they are thinking about and read your story. You can have the most compelling, fascinating information to share with the world, but if you have a dull headline, no one will ever read it.
Headlines can also tell an incredible part of your story.
Creating a headline or coming up with that crucial title is sometimes a challenge though. If you are struggling to come up with a headline for your content, you’ll love these tips -
In no real order, here are 20 killer headlines:
Are you ready?
- Lead with a question – did you see the first sentence there?
- Use words like “Announcing!”, “Just Released!”, “Just In!“
- Create a how-to… “How to find the perfect man,” “How to learn sign language in 4 hours.”
- Reel people in – “Calling all Salesmen!”, “Firefighters!”, “Bloggers!”
- Offer a breaking news story – “This just in, new eye cream reduces wrinkles in just 2 hours!”
- Offer something for free - “Free tips for writing better”
- Use I – “I discovered the best kept secret for Costa Rican vacations!”
- Put the product name in the headline – “How Traffic Explosion literally explodes your traffic!”
- Use the word why – “Why I love FBTraffic Jacker.”
- Feature your offer – “New baby onesies at 40% off.”
- Use the word breakthrough – “This breakthrough in blogging will knock your socks off.”
- Use a guarantee – “I guarantee you’ll find this information helpful!”
- Focus on the positive end results – “Lose 30 pounds within 3 months!”
- Ask the question, “Who Else?” – “Who else wants to gets massive traffic to their website?”
- Warning! – “Warning – this will only be revealed once!”
- Make it easy – “The easiest ways to 1,000 visitors a day”
- Give reasons – “30 reasons to use our doggy day care.”
- Admit a weakness – “We were guilty of bad cheesy bread too.”
- Use upper and lower case – “This Just In – A New Way To Reach Your Audience”
- And finally, the proven cliches -
- Free
- New
- Last chance
- Hurry
- Quick
- Easy
- Sensational
- Remarkable
- Revolutionary
- Startling
- Just Arrives
- Important Development
- Introducing
- Announcing
- The Truth About
- Offering
- Suddenly
- Amazing
From blog posts to book titles, a great headline can easily double your traffic, more than double your sales and even lead to more people wanting to sell your book for you.
While there’s many other pieces to your writing, the headline is equally, if not a little more, important to the success of your book.
To your successful book 
I love copywriting! There’s always so much to learn, yet all the old tricks still work too. Thanks for sharing!
Martha Giffen recently posted..Do Blogs Really Matter? These Do!
Thanks Martha!
I guess it’s kind of a ‘back to basics’ thing – can’t argue with the same tried and true, successful headlines!
I agree that headlines are very important for articles, but you should be careful that you are not creating headlines that are easily confused with spam. When I see things that say “Get this for free!” or try to force me to hurry “Last chance” or “Hurry!” I think that they’re trying to get my adrenaline up so I won’t use my best judgement. I find headlines that indicate a short list “5 Best ways to Excite the Imagination” or “7 Easy Super Bowl Recipes” are much more likely to generate clicks.
Alicia at GreenLifestyleConsulting.com recently posted..Green Game Plan For Your Super Bowl Party
Hi Alicia,
Thanks for the comments! Yes, we definitely don’t want to be confused with spammy sites – the idea is to use headlines that will captivate your audience – something different that will capture their attention.
Many thanks!