3 Secrets to Getting the Perfect List Headline Every Time
Do you love using lists in your headlines?
What is your favorite type of headline for your blog articles?
Welcome back to the last article in our series on Perfect Headlines. For the past month, we have been discussing how to get the perfect headline for your blog every time. In the first article, I shared that:
On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.
This little scary fact is brought to you by Copyblogger. When I read this, I really wanted to improve my headline crafting. Since then, I have been sharing what I’ve learned, you have been weighing it, and it has been wonderful!
Let me start this last part of the series by taking a quick second to review the last few articles:
- How to Write the Perfect Headline Every Time – In this article we just set up the series about perfect headlines.
- You Too Care Write Perfect Headlines Every Time – This was one of my favorites because it gives ideas for headlines besides “How To” and “7 Steps”, “6 Ways”, and “5 Reasons”. Which for me, was a breath of fresh air.
- How To Write The Perfect “How To” Headline That Gets Results – Here I share about how by adding in a few words you can get results from your “how to” headlines.
This series has really been a fun one. Now, when I’m writing so many articles a week, I have different options of headlines to choose from. But, it wouldn’t be a Headlining Series without talking about the “7 Steps”, “6 Ways”, and “5 Reasons”.
- Readability
If you have read any of my articles, you know that I am all about easy to read articles. I think that setting up your article and headline that makes it easy to read gives you a huge advantage. Using lists in your headline as well as using lists as an outline in your actual article promotes your articles readability. If you want to know more about how to make your articles easy to read, check out 7 Tips on Writing Easy to Read Articles. - Establishes You As An Expert
Only an expert can take something and set it up into a simple number of easy ways, types or secrets, right? Applying the list format to your headlines will tell your readers that you are an expert in whatever you are sharing. - Specific Promise
During this series, I have been coming back over and over again to this amazing series that Copyblogger did. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend that you do. Here is what Brian Clark has to say about list headlines,Any headline that lists a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways will work because, once again, it makes a very specific promise of what’s in store for the reader. A nice quantifiable return on attention invested goes a long way toward prompting action, and as long as you deliver with quality content, you’ll have a satisfied reader.
For Copyblogger’s series, please see: How to Write Magnetic Headlines
Ok, so we have reviewed so many different types of headlines. What is your favorite type of headline to write and what is your favorite headline to read? Are they different?
I’m enjoying these headline posts a lot..really make me think about the architecture behind the message!
Kerry,
These articles have been really fun to write. Thanks for commenting.
Love the specific promise tip! That’s a really good idea and makes me want to go back and read through my banked posts to see if I have made a specific promise (if possible). Thanks for posting!
Thanks Brooke! Glad you liked it.
Great post! I struggle on headline writing. I try to make mine more witty, but I’m definitely going to try some of those out!
Carrie,
Thanks so much for commenting. Let me know how these tips work for you. I would love to hear about it.