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The importance of headlines can’t be overemphasized. They’re one of the most critical elements of your blog posts.
Research shows that even though 80% of people will read a blog headline, only 20% go ahead to read the contents of the blog.
Why is that?
Because, in most cases, the headline is just missing the mark; it’s not drawing readers in. And if you can’t get eyes on your blog, how can you support your goals?
While your blog headlines may seem to be a small component of your content (even an afterthought), they play a crucial role in the success of your blog. That’s why you have to learn how to write them the right way.
Here are seven tips for writing headlines that support your goals:
The first step in creating blog headlines that support your goals is to know what those goals are. Setting blogging goals will help you identify and articulate the specific action you’ll want your readers to take. As a result, you’ll craft headlines designed to encourage your readers to take that action. For example, If your goal is to get readers to sign up for a free trial of your lead generation service, you could write a headline like: “X Best Free Lead Generation Services You Need to Try.”
Don’t forget: Your blog goals should be aligned with your core business goals, the reasons you started a blog. After all, your blog is part of your marketing strategy.
One of the biggest mistakes brands make is to write their headlines without considering what their audience really wants. If you want to write blog headlines that support your goals, you must understand your audience:
A clear understanding of the kind of content your audience loves will help you determine how to tailor your headlines in such a way that they support your goals.
Your blog headlines are an important part of helping make your blog posts discoverable. That’s why it’s critical that you incorporate your keywords into it.
But you’ve got to do it strategically if you want your headline to support your goals.
Not only must you use keywords in your headline, but your headline also needs to be crafted in such a way as to appeal to your audience’s search intent (as we mentioned above).
The main purpose of your headline is to get people to take action. And that action is to read the rest of your blog post. To achieve this, you should leverage power words in your blog post headlines.
What are power words, you ask?
They’re words that elicit a psychological or emotional response from your readers, including:
If your blog headlines can get an emotional response from your readers, you’ve crafted a headline that has a better chance of supporting your goals.
Another tip on writing blog headlines that support your goals is to ensure your headline agitates a pain point.
Let’s say your audience’s biggest pain point is customer retention. You can craft a headline that agitates that specific pain point, such as, “Losing Customers is Hurting Your Bottom Line — Here’s How to Fix It.”
Remember, the reason your target audience will want to read your blog post is to get a solution to one of their problems. And the only way they’ll know that’s what they’ll be getting is by agitating a pain point and showing a solution in your headline.
The headlines that work best are often the ones that are personalized. Those that address the reader as a friend.
While this may sound tricky to pull off, it’s actually not that hard. All you have to do is use words like “you” and “your.” These make your blog headlines sound like they’re speaking directly to your reader, which fosters an emotional connection. As a result, they’re more likely to read the rest of your blog post.
Finally, to write effective headlines, try letting the data guide you. Study your previous headlines and see those that performed well. Using tools like Buzzsumo, you can get a glimpse into the kinds of headlines your target audience is interacting with most.
With this data, you can then reverse-engineer the best performing headlines in your niche.
The importance of headlines is clear: Written well, a headline will get eyes on your blog and, in turn, help you meet your goals.
Consistently coming up with SaaS blog headlines that support your goals isn’t easy, though. It can be a huge headache if you don’t know what you’re doing.
At SaaSpirin, we’ve got the cure.
If you need help with your headlines or complete content marketing strategy, get in touch. We’re ready to help you create content that drives results.