How a Good Headline Can Change Your Writing Success
What’s the first part of a post or article that you usually see? It’s the headline, of course. A good headline can actually mean the difference between whether a piece is read or not read. How many books have you picked up simply because the title seemed interesting. If you’re like me, the answer is more than one or two.
If you publish web content, a good title or headline is more important than ever before. A book in a store or an article in a magazine may have an attractive photo or cover design to draw the reader in. On the web, however, readers are much more likely to be scanning lists of many articles or posts. Your headline has to grab their attention or you’ve lost them.
Fortunately, there are some excellent resources that you can use to make your headlines more effective. I’ve listed a few of them here:
- From Copyblogger.com: Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines, and Social Media and How to Write Headlines That Work
- Adventures in Copywriting points to a Net Writing piece: 7 Easy Ways to Create Eye catching Titles
- From FreelanceSwitch: The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill
- From Lorelle on WordPress: Writing Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles on Your Blog
- From World Copywriting Blog: Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Headlines
- From Lockergnome: How To Write Web Headlines That Beg To Be Read
- From WordsmithBob.com: Five Keys To Writing Killer Web Page Headlines
About the Author: I am a successful freelance writer with 20 years of copy writing experience. I am available for consulting, business writing, copy writing, editing, technical writing, and web content writing. In addition, I have written an ebook, 
Melissa R. Garrett | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
I’m definitely bookmarking this page and will reference those articles when needed. Thanks for sharing!
Melissa R. Garrett
http://www.LittleWoolgatherings.blogspot.com
http://www.TheSilverTongue.blogspot.com
Lorelle | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
Thank you for inclusion in this list. I’m in good company.
Laura | Jun 12, 2007 | Reply
Melissa, I’m glad this helped you.
Lorelle, Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you again.
Vivienne Quek | Jun 12, 2007 | Reply
A headline is an ad within an ad. Great article. About 80% people read nothing but headline. If the headline refuses to captivate them, the rest of the offerings - no matter how great - is lost. Literally wasting good marketing/advertising dollar down the drain.
I would like your comment on an article I wrote for Affiliate KB entitled Sales Copy That’s Too Good To be True. I valued your comments as you are a professional writer. I’m writing from a marketing person as well as an end consumer. Looking forward to learning from you.
Thanks, Laura.
Jeanne Dininni | Jun 12, 2007 | Reply
Laura,
Looks like you have some wonderful resources here! I definitely plan to check them out, one at a time, whenever I have a few free moments! It can never hurt us to learn the secrets for creating great headlines that will attract more readers to our content!
Thanks for the helpful info!
Jeanne
Yvonne Russell | Jun 13, 2007 | Reply
Another great resource Laura. I’ll be referring back to this for sure. Thanks for gathering these links and sharing them.
Laura | Jun 15, 2007 | Reply
Hi Vivienne. I looked at your article and I think that you have a good topic.
Hi Jeanne and Yvonne! I’m glad you found it helpful.
Watch Free Episodes | Jun 16, 2007 | Reply
Congrats on the link from Lorelle!
Paula
Vivienne Quek | Jul 10, 2007 | Reply
Hi Laura
Just wrote a similar topic How to Write Headlines That Sell and linked to this article of yours.:)
Mary Ann | May 26, 2009 | Reply
Good keyword phrases will give you a good position in search engine results, but if you have a poor headline, readers will ignore your site listed at number one on the page. Instead they will eagerly click on the site listed at number ten and right at the bottom of the page, simply because it has a more catchy interesting headline.