Writing a great headline is your first job with any new writing piece. This is the gateway to the content itself; and if you’ve got the greatest article ever written, without a great title to draw them in, no one will ever see it. Here are 6 tips on how to write a great headline.

How to Write a Great Headline

Alliteration, Rhyming, and Rhythm Will Make a Headline Memorable

Similar to a catchy jingles for companies which you’d hear on the radio, effective use of the above listed copywriting devices will make your headline more memorable, thus increasing the chances that it will become embedded in their head and help to motivate them to take action later.

Fonts Matter

Use a stand out/impact font and use bright and dynamic colors. There’s a reason you see a lot of bold black mixed with red combination fonts. Stick to just 2 colors generally though so it doesn’t get too complicated and begin to lose its effect. The second color should be used to highlight choice words which you want your reader to notice especially in your headline to make it pop and stand out from the rest of the copy.

Reference Your Solution Early on in the Headline Itself

A lot of marketers like to tease their readers and build suspense when they would be much better off simply just referencing or at least alluding to the solution which they are offering right off the bat so that their readers know why they are there and know that they have an incentive to continue to read. People are becoming increasingly cynical on the internet as time progresses, and their attention spans for a sales page are closing with each year, so stop playing games and start giving them something tangible from the start.

Write to Your Audience

This is a big one which is easy to rush passed in favor of writing simply what you think is a catchy headline. Identify who your perfect customer would be and write a headline that you know they would respond to whether that’s appealing more to their emotions or conversely a more fact and statistical driven headline.

Stay Away From Negative Language

The human brain does not respond well to negative language. So whether your reader recognizes it or not, a headline such as “ No More Suffering With Chronic Back Pain”, subconsciously they’ll perceive it as “More Suffering With Chronic Back Pain”. Avoid words like “no”, “not”, or “won’t”.

Split Test… Then Split Test

Split testing your headline is the best thing that you can do time and time again while tracking your results. Don’t change your headline in combination with anything else on the page as that makes it difficult to gauge whether it was a price change, a site design, or your headline itself which caused the boost or decline in conversions. See how to split test for more information on how to pit two aspects of your site against one another to determine which converts better.