Eight out of ten people are going to read your headline, but only two out of ten are going to click through and read the rest of your article. Why? It’s because your headlines aren’t catchy. Today I’m going to share the secrets of a good headline.

So if you’re writing a headline for your blog posts, you want to make sure it’s so appealing people not only want to click through, but they’re going to read the rest of your posts. So how do you do this?

Well, luckily for you I have throughout my career gone through over two thousand blog posts. Though I’m not the best writer, but when you do something long enough, eventually you learn what not to do.

1. 6-7 word Blog Titles
The first thing that I’ve learned is blog post titles that are roughly six to seven words tend to do better than blog post titles that are only three words or twenty words. Why? This is it’s either too little so it doesn’t explain to their visitor or reader what they’re going get when they read the rest of your post. If it’s too long it’s just overwhelming and it’s a sentence and no one’s going read it.

Also, when it’s around six to seven words it tends to fit really well and when you do a google search you’ll notice that that title in most cases won’t be cut off, because it’s not too long. If it’s cut off, that’s a bad thing as you’re going to get less search traffic.

2. Use adjectives
The second thing that you need to do is use adjectives. When you use adjectives within your headline, more people are going to click on it.

3. Consider adding the Year
The third thing you need to do is consider using the year. You don’t always want to do this, it won’t work for every type of blog post, but in an article such as “The beginner’s guide to SEO” You can put within the title “updated 2019” or “updated 2021”. This causes a lot more clicks because people know it’s fresh.

4. Portent’s Title Generator
The fourth tip that I have for you is to use tools like Portent’s title generator. You can put in a keyword in there and it will come up with really catchy titles, such as “How Not Knowing SEO Makes You a Rookie.”

“How Not Knowing” – Everyone wants to fit in. Pinpoint something they might not know, but should.
“SEO” – Keep the topic light and easy to read.
“Makes You” – You never want to make your readers feel silly.
“a Rookie” – Everyone in essence wants to better themselves, so give them a little nudge.

5. Copy Blogger Formula
The fifth strategy I have for you is to google “copy blogger headline formula”. They’ll have a list of templates for you. All you have to do is plug in your key words and it’ll come up with headlines that work well for you.

6. Know your reader base
The sixth thing, is to know your reader base. I have noticed most my readers are clients who are just starting off. So when I talk about how they can get more search traffic without spending any money, it appeals to them a lot and those titles get a lot of social shares and click throughs, and tons of reads.

If you use those tactics, you’re going to be able to create a catchy blog post title that people are going to read, click through and then, read the rest of your blog posts.

So, what do you like the titles you see around the web? Let me know in the comments.