10 Techniques of Writing Headlines for Clicks and Conversions

These headline copywriting tips and expert techniques of writing headlines will show you how to write a headline that gets clicks and conversions.

Whether you’re learning how to write blog content headlines or advertising headlines, knowing how to write magnetic, attention-grabbing headlines can often turn around a failing marketing campaign or blog post and guarantee a great response where there was none.

Think about it. How many dull headlines have you read that did not compel you to click on them? Probably more than you can remember, because after all who remembers the boring headlines!

This is one of the reasons why professional writers spend a lot of time agonizing over their headlines. Indeed, in the case of landing page copywriting and conversion copywriting, writers often spend more time on the headline than on the main copy or content.

This makes sense because, if the headline fails when you write an article for publication or sales copy for a landing page, your content won’t matter since very few will get to see it.

“The headline is what sold the paper. You can’t take the headlines for granted,” says copywriting guru, Jim Edwards (who wrote the forward for my book, Number One In Your Niche in 2004).

“The headline is what sold the paper. You can’t take the headlines for granted.” ~ Jim Edwards

But not many writers know how to write magnetic headlines or attention-grabbing headlines, or have learned the secrets of writing effective headlines that get clicks and conversions.

So how do you come up with great headlines? What headline writing rules can you apply to write engaging, compelling, magnetic and attention-grabbing headlines every single time?

How To Write A Headline That Gets Clicks

While learning how to write a good headline for an article is different from writing an eye-catching headline for a sales letter, the principles of copywriting psychology are the same.

Here are some headline copywriting tips and hooks you can use right away:

#1. Use curiosity

Curiosity is an extremely powerful motivator or hook. Writing headlines that pique your reader’s curiosity can make them really want to read what the article says.

Websites like Buzzfeed have used these headline techniques with great success and you can check them out if you want to learn how to write clickbait headlines.

But don’t go overboard and overdo the clickbait or you’ll risk running afoul of your readers, not to mention search engines and social networks which abhor clickbait today.

#2. What’s in it for me?

To write great attention-grabbing headlines you need to understand human nature. Humans, by nature, are selfish animals and the big question that is at the top of their minds is ‘What’s In It For Me’? (or WIIFM).

Any headline that answers that persistent question successfully is likely to turn out to be a powerful headline and get more clicks.

#3. Sum it up

Another technique that is a winner is summarizing what the article is about in the most powerful and seductive words.

It is important to note that the main aim of this technique is not to trick people to read the rest of the prose. Rather it is to grab your target readership and get them really interested.

#4. State your strongest benefit

Expert copywriters ask themselves a very simple question before writing headlines – What’s the strongest benefit?

If you follow this technique of writing headlines and include your strongest benefit in your headline, it is more likely to succeed.

Watch this video by Jim Edwards on the #1 script to use as a hook to get more readers and visitors (hint: I used it in this article, too).

#5. Keep it short and simple

Long headlines don’t work because they often get cut off in the search engine results pages, thereby diminishing their impact.

Usually, 3 to 6 words (or 60 to 70 characters) work best for blog content headlines. Don’t write headlines that are more than 10 words. Keep it as short and simple as possible.

This is also one of the best headline writing tips for writing SEO headlines where you have to include specific keywords to help your content rank on search engines.

#6. One idea per headline

Another common mistake writers make is to try and use more than one idea in a single headline with the impression that two powerful ideas are more effective than one.

Actually what usually tends to happen is that the two ideas will dilute each other, cause the headline to be confusing, and in many cases too long. So stick to a single idea for your headline and you won’t go wrong.

#7. Emotions carry headlines

Never underestimate the emotional impact of headlines. When you learn how to write headlines that evoke strong emotion, chances are that you’ll end up with attention-grabbing headlines.

Here are some headline-writing tools to help you write compelling and magnetic headlines that will make visitors click through and read your blog or website copy.

Fresh Title & Title Analyzer

Fresh Title is the world’s most powerful title creator and title-analyzing software for content marketers. It will help you instantly create hundreds of highly responsive titles and headlines for any content.

The Instant Title Builder gives you instant access to thousands of proven titles and headlines for any content using 4 powerful built-in tools.

It quickly generates over 830 powerful and proven titles or headlines by answering a few simple questions about your product, service, or subject.

You’ll also get instant access to over 350,000 proven headlines and over 70,000 email subject lines for an endless source of content ideas.

Coschedule’s Headline Studio

Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer can help you write better headlines that will increase traffic, remove guesswork, and outperform your rivals.

Learn how to use Coschedule’s Headline Studio to score your headlines and receive useful headline-boosting tips.

It’s the best way to achieve high rankings and increase traffic to, and clicks on, your headline while also getting better outcomes.

Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) Score Tool

The Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score tool by the Advanced Marketing Institute will analyze your headline to determine which of your customer’s emotions your headline most impacts.

These headline writing tools will help you write headlines and blog titles that use emotions to grab attention and prompt action in your readers.

#8. Be specific

Being specific makes a headline much more believable and therefore much more effective.

As an example, “How I earned a lot of money in a short time” is not as powerful and believable as “How I made $102,399 in Just Two Weeks.”

These types of headlines in copywriting work only if you have some data to share that you can use to demonstrate your expertise and results.

#9. Inject personality into your sales copy

As Jim Edwards shared on Facebook, “This quote is the perfect summation of injecting personality into your sales copy. It means becoming so magnetic that you’re like a Star Wars tractor beam for your ideal customers (and as repellant as a skunk to others). The key is finding the courage to do it.”

“Love me. Hate me. There’s no money in the middle” ~ Unknown

#10. Test, test, test

Testing headlines can help you come up with the perfect headline for your copy. When you use these techniques for writing headlines, you’ll quickly discover that there are frequent surprises in this business.

Often a headline that looks like a sure winner can prove to be second best when tested against another headline that looked less promising to you.

When creating a headline for your content, you should come up with at least 5 to 10 different headlines. This allows you to explore various angles, tones, and styles to find the most compelling and engaging headline for your audience.

It also helps you avoid settling for the first idea that comes to mind and encourages creativity in crafting a headline that effectively communicates the essence of your content.

In addition to these headline writing tips, you must also learn how to use SEO keyword tools to optimize your blog content headlines for search engines.

This will help you increase the search engine rankings as well as the click-throughs of your blog posts, resulting in more traffic from Google.

Keep these headline copywriting tips in mind when you write your blogs, website copy, or sales copy and you’ll soon learn how to write attention-grabbing headlines and titles that get more traffic and sales.

Use Copywriting AI Tools

Rated 5/5 stars in over 3,000 reviews, the Jasper AI copywriting software is the best copywriting AI tool because it is trained by the world’s best SEO and Direct Response Marketing experts to write original, creative content, blog articles, social media posts, website copy, and more.

You can learn how to optimize your website copy in less than 1 hour with Jasper’s copywriting AI free course. Learn how to boost ad conversions with better copywriting by using the Jasper AI copywriting tool to write your website copy and convert more visitors into leads and customers.

You can also leverage free AI writing tools like ChatGPT to write advertising copy by providing clear instructions and refining the generated content to align with your brand and campaign goals.

Copywriting Courses & Books To Improve Writing Skills

These copywriting courses, copywriting Masterclasses, and books to improve writing skills have more headline copywriting tips from copywriting experts.

They will teach you expert techniques for writing headlines so you can learn how to come up with a good headline and write compelling, eye-catching, and engaging headlines that get clicks and conversions.

Some online copywriting resources are free, like The Gary Halbert Letters – a treasure trove of Gary Halbert copywriting tips to help you learn copywriting for beginners.

You can also get The Boron Letters, a series of letters by Gary Halbert, explaining insider tactics and sage wisdom to his youngest son Bond.

These copywriting tutorials will show you how to use copywriting psychology in the art of writing headlines and sales copy because understanding this is the foundation of improving the performance of any content you write.

Some of them also include a copywriting swipe file of headline writing examples that include the best copywriting headlines ever written by the best copywriters in the world.

• Headline Hacks: A Cheat Sheet For Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral
• How to Write Magnetic Headlines by Copyblogger Media
• Copywriting Secrets by Jim Edwards
• How to Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards
• Persuasive Copywriting: Cut Through the Noise & Communicate With Impact
• The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman
• Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene M. Schwartz

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