Don’t Neglect It.
We get told a lot not to pay attention to what we see first. Don’t judge a book by its cover, don’t take this at face value, and don’t judge her/him by what s/he looks like or wears.
But in reality, we do it all the time.
If we’re looking at a shelf full of books, we’re going to be drawn to particular covers because we like the way they look.
Similarly, when someone is reading through a list of headlines, you want yours to stand out so they will click and read it.
And headlines are important for everything you write online. They need to stand out against a list of others.
- Blog post titles for search engines
- Story titles on Medium
- Email newsletter titles in an email program
- Product titles in an online marketplace
You use headlines in everything you write, and they are the first thing that makes people decide to click for more or skip over.
Your headline is important.
Writing great headlines is a skill you can learn through practice.
Years ago, I was the editor of a small-town newspaper. We had a captive audience, and we knew what we printed was important or interesting to everyone in the town.
We weren’t competing with anyone else. So we had fun with our headlines, if we could put in a subtle joke it was perfect.
We didn’t need to think ‘will this wording make people more likely to read our article?’
When I started writing online I used the same concept. It was what I knew. But it didn’t convert across to the online space nearly as well.
My audience was no longer a captive 9,500 people in one location.
It’s now millions from all around the world.
Having a fairly generic headline with a bit of a joke isn’t going to cut it against millions of other writers trying to get attention as well.
You have to be specific. And make the person you’re writing for know that reading your piece will benefit them.
I now practice writing headlines nearly every day.
There are two schools of thought about when you should write a headline for your article.
The first is if you can’t think of the perfect headline yet, just write the article and come up with a headline at the end.
The second is to work on your headline until it’s the best you can get, then write your article.
I am now firmly in the second group when it comes to choosing when to write a headline.
The problem with the first option is twofold. If you have an article ready and a sub-par headline, you’re more likely to go ahead and publish it because it’s sitting there ready to go.
It may also mean your headline and article aren’t the strongest they can be together.
If you get your headline right from the beginning, you have an anchor point for the whole article. You can refer back to it while writing to make sure you don’t go off track, and if you start struggling while writing, just go back to your heading and refocus on what your article is about.
Another Australian writer, Tim Denning, often says ‘Write 10 headlines every day.’
It’s a useful habit to get into.
Not only practicing your headlines helps you become quicker and more efficient, but there is also the added bonus of getting ideas for more articles as you go.