Introduction: Why SEO Headlines are So Important
The internet is filled with blogs. there are over a billion blogs that Google has indexed. To get ranked on the first page of a SERP (Search Engine Result Page) you need to make sure that you not just relying on your content. Other factors such as on-page graphics, internal and external backlinks, HTML meta tags, and Headlines make your content rich and helpful for the user.
A good headline will pull traffic to your webpage. The more people click on your search result listing, Google will rank your result higher. Just writing great content for your website doesn’t mean that it will attract visitors. You may write the most relevant content that is out there for a certain niche but if your headline doesn’t portray this then you may as well not bother. Your headline should tell the user what is your blog about and how will it solve their problem. People are searching on the internet for information every second and if you are not able to get their attention by the headline, no one is going to click.
Headline writing should be a key component of your internet marketing strategy. If you can get this right, everything else will follow.
What Makes a Good SEO Headline?
Keywords
Keywords are the search terms people use to search on a search engine like google. Putting keywords in the headline tells the search engines and users, what is the blogs all about.
Emotion
Almost 80% of people will read your headlines, but only about 20% will follow and read the rest of the article. That is the power of a good headline, and that is why it determines the effectiveness of your blog.
It is no secret that we as humans are emotional. If a headline manages to evoke emotion within the user, the user will likely click and read the article. You need to put some powerful words and emotional words with a combination of common and uncommon words in your headlines. This will tempt your audience to click on the link and read further.
Avoid Bounces
Misleading your audience with false headlines leads to people getting to your blog and bouncing back because. You need to make sure that you avoid that at all costs. Google and other search engines do not like to see high bounce rates and so they do not rank your webpage as high. Bounce rates are one of the very important KPI that you need to analyze if you want to do good in digital marketing.
Call-To-Action
Adding call-to-action in the headline gives it a certain amount of urgency. As mentioned above, people are emotional so a headline like “Try this formula to quickly write catchy headlines” will do much better than “The formula to write a catchy headline”.
Numbers
One of the ways to allude to confidence is to include numbers in a headline. Headlines like “9 simple social media hacks, number 7 will shock you” do well. And for some reason, odd numbers do better than even numbers.
Keep the word count to 8
A headline should be short and quick to read, but also not too short that it is unable to deliver the information. According to the content marketing institute, headlines with 8 words perform best. These titles receive a 21% higher click-through rate than average.
Questions
Titles that ended with a question mark had a higher click-through rate than those that ended with exclamation marks or periods. If you feel the urge to use an exclamation mark, our studies have shown that three (!!!) received almost twice as many clicks as all other punctuation marks.
Conclusion
You need to understand that a well-written blog with all the necessary information will not do as well in bringing traffic to your website if it does not have a good headline. In my experience, it is important to spend at least 40% of your content writing time finalizing a headline for your post. You should write down a list of at least 5 – 10 headlines and then start shortlisting the ones that evoke emotions. Think like your target audience, look at your buyer personas and decide on a title that most people in your audience will click on.
Why are marketing headlines important?
A headline determines the effectiveness of your content. It won’t matter how good your content is if people do read it. A headline grabs the attention of your audience and engages them to read the whole article.
What is the one job of a headline in content marketing?
The one job of a headline is to grab attention. Your audience should be able to get hooked and attached to your headline so much that they follow through and read the whole article. A headline tells your audience, what is the content about and why should they care about that.
What is the main purpose of a headline?
The main purpose of a headline is to convey the importance of your article. Your target audience is looking for solutions to their problem, your headline should tell them that your content has those solutions.
How many words should a headline be?
A headline should be short and quick to read, but also not too short that it is unable to deliver the information. According to the content marketing institute, headlines with 8 words perform best. These titles receive a 21% higher click-through rate than average.
