Every writer, regardless of experience, will tell you that headlines are the most important part of the article.
You have a very short space in which to grab the reader’s attention, and to keep them reading your work.
In this article, we will discuss some of the most effective headline writing techniques, based on extensive research and testing.
The Best Headlines Are Concise, Yet Evocative
When you’re writing a headline, you have about three seconds to grab the reader’s attention.
After that, they’re likely to click away, never to return.
In the same way that a movie trailer reveals enough about the film to keep you wanting more, but not so much that it spoils the fun of discovering it for yourself,
the headline should give you a good feeling of what the article is going to be about, but enough to make you eager to read the full piece.
In other words, you want to keep the reader interested, but not so interested that they’re distracted by what happened before the headline.
This balance is difficult to achieve, especially if you’re writing for a general audience.
The problem is that too often, writers think that longer is better, and that a longer headline is more likely to be used, and more effective than a short one.
This is absolutely not the case.
Based on extensive research and testing, we’ve determined that headlines that are shorter than six words are more effective than longer ones.
Short Headlines Are More Effective Than Long Ones
Writing a short headline is not the same as writing for newspaper or magazine publication.
In those cases, you have about as much space as you want for the headline, as the space above the article is reserved for the article’s byline.
In an ebook, however, you have only as much space as is necessary, so you have to be selective about what you include.
One of the biggest mistakes that beginning writers make is to go for length.
They think that longer is better, and that if they write an 8,000 word essay, it will be more interesting to the reader.
This is completely misguided.
What they’re doing is taking up more space than is necessary, and the result is that the article becomes less interesting as they continue to write.
This is because the longer the article, the more room there is for errors, spelling mistakes, and general clumsiness.
When you write a long article, you have to stop and start over again, perhaps several times before you get everything right.
This is incredibly frustrating for the writer, as well as the reader, who has to go through the entire article, waiting for each mistake to be fixed.
Writing a long article, in other words, takes a lot of time, and it’s very easy to make a mistake and waste a whole day’s work.
If you keep to six words or fewer, the article is easy to understand, quick to read, and much less likely to have mistakes.
If you write for a newspaper, magazine, or similar publication, you will need to include a lot more than six words to make the article interesting.
In an ebook, however, you have only so much room, and you have to be selective about what you include.
Keep To One Simple Yet Descriptive Word
Another very important tip is to only use one word to describe a person, place or thing.
For example, instead of saying “the boy’s uncle”, say “boy”.
Or instead of saying “the brown dog”, say “dog”.
This is much less confusing for the reader, who will be able to quickly understand the context of the article, without having to worry about words that they don’t know or understand.
The more you keep to one word, the more focus you place on the article, and the less likely you are to write a word that the reader doesn’t know or understand.
In other words, this reduces the chances of mistakes, and it also makes your writing more engaging.
For example, instead of saying “Tom’s sister’s wedding”, write “wedding”.
Or instead of saying “the couple’s first child”, write “child”.
These are just a few tips to help you write effective headlines for your ebook.
As I’ve mentioned, the more you keep to one idea, the better.
This reduces the chances of the article becoming boring, or confusing.
To conclude, I would like to mention that you don’t necessarily have to take our word for it.
Just do a quick internet search for ‘Effective Article Headlines’, and you will find a lot of great examples of how others have used these same techniques.