Clickbait articles…we all hate them. They promise a spectacular revelation, or an unheard-of way of losing weight/attracting a partner/making money (and the list keeps going), and the content we reach is simply disappointing. So most of us have learned to be wary of clickbait. Whenever a title sounds too bombastic, we tend to move on without clicking on it.
Therefore, you want to do everything you can to avoid your blog titles sounding like clickbait. This is even more important, given that Facebook™ is already running an algorithm to weed out clickbait from news feeds.
“But I need a catchy title, I want people to click on my headlines and go to my blog!” And we are here to help you learn the art of writing click-worthy headlines, which are a true image of the content below them. It is all about finding the right balance between stirring people’s curiosity and satisfying it with the content you post in your blog.
Here are a few useful tips:
- Create a Listicle Headline
Listicles are articles organised as a list of items. They are an all-time popular article format because they offer people several options to choose from in order to solve a problem. People do not really like to be told there is only one way to do something. Having the freedom of choice removed from them creates frustrations.
This is why headlines such as “10 Ways to Lose Weight Without Starving Yourself” are going to get lots of clicks all the time. On one hand, it promises many options to choose from, on the other it reassures the reader that they don’t have to do anything drastic in order to attain their goal.
- Ask a Question
Question headlines are great, but only if they are open questions, not closed ones. A closed question can be answered by Yes or No. An open question requires an elaborate answer. If you want to try question headlines, think about the type of response you want to get from your readers.
The best question headlines are those that:
- Ask the reader to agree with you on a topic
- Make people curious about the answer you have found
- Provoke their beliefs and show an alternative view
- Create a Debate
When everyone agrees, all is fine, but the conversation dies out. Whenever there are several opinions thrown in, people start taking sides and bringing pro and con arguments, and there is a lively interest around the topic.
This is why you should not be afraid to stir up a debate among your readers with a headline that challenges a generally-accepted truth or keeps the conversation going around a trending topic. It is important, however, to be aware of the difference between creating a debate and antagonising your readers with a radical view on the topic.
- How-To Titles Never Fail to Attract Clicks
People love to learn something new. It is even truer when it comes to home improvement, personal care, fitness, pet training, etc. Instead of paying someone else to do that for them, they want to be able to perform some tasks on their own. For this reason, How-To articles are popular and their headlines get lots of clicks on the social media and in Google searches.
- Keyword Research Will Help You Write Great Titles
Google Trends or Keyword Monitoring tools are your best allies in finding what people are currently searching for in your area of interest. This will help you create click-worthy headlines which contain keywords which people are actively searching for.
At the same time, this keyword research will help you identify topics that are trending at a certain moment, so that your blog content reflects your readers’ interests and needs.