Three Tips to Get Eyes on Your Content

I was revisiting the draft of this post when I came across this entry at B2BMarketingSmarts blog, “Active Headlines Get More Attention.”

So true. I could have titled this post, “A Guide to Creating Headlines That Grab Attention.” Would you have clicked on that?

Maybe, maybe not.

Headlines are one of your most powerful tools to get eyes on your content. Effective headlines, however, are one of the hardest things to write. You have limited space (and therefore, words) in which to entice and engage your readers. Here are three tips I’ve found that make writing effective headlines a little easier.

1) Write your copy first. Don’t even think about your headline just yet. Trying to write a good piece around a great headline is much more complicated than writing a good headline around great piece.

2) Highlight the main benefit of your piece. For example, this post is about headlines, but the word “headlines” is not in my title. Why? Because even though I’m talking about headlines, my focus is getting your content read.

3) Quantify your headline. Readers love numbers. They make a piece feel concrete and actionable. For some reason, odd numbers resonate better with readers than even numbers, so if you’re going to include tips or a list, try to condense you list into an odd number.