How to make a great headline

It is a question posed all too often by bloggers; how do you come up with a great headline that reels in your readers? And what works better generally, longer or shorter headlines? Of course, word play and the number of words you use definitely has a role to play but it’s not all a numbers game, so stop thinking of it in terms of subtracting or adding any words. There is no magic elixir or numerical formula by which you will be able to come up with a sublime headline that has everyone applauding your genius. The answer, surprisingly, is rather simple if you were to bear with me.

Coming up with a headline that works is very straightforward. Ask yourself this; how much would you read as a headline? Humans have an attention span that is at its peak only for a short period of time, and beyond that interest rapidly wanes away. Normally, in terms of reading a headline it extends to a few seconds. It shouldn’t drone on and it should be like a good potato chip; crisp and delicately to the point. Try this for size:

“The six mistakes ignorant investors make when it comes to approaching investment and what you can do to avoid it.”

Now while this headline sums up the spirit of the article perfectly it’s a bit long-winded to say the least. Perhaps you might have even lost your train of thought somewhere along the middle of it all! Brevity is the soul of knowledge, and that soul has been sold out and whored out several times over in the course of that headline. I doubt you can even remember what that headline was exactly at this point in time (don’t peek, we know you want to). That headline is a mish-mash of too much happening all at once. Peruse instead these great book titles:

“Don’t stand too close to a naked man”

“Where the Wild Things Are”

“By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”

“Kinky Friedman’s Guide To Texas Etiquette, Or How To Get To Heaven Or Hell Without Going Through Dallas-Fort Worth”

You would have not noticed a certain succinctness with each of these titles and memorability to each of them. The last one is far longer than the rest, but still memorable. “But it’s long!” you say and you are correct, but it is the punctuation that saves it. Punctuation is in fact the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandpa!” and “Let’s eat Grandpa!” How to punctuate something is entirely up to you, but it can make a sentence much easier or much more sensible to read because of the mental pause it affords. Let that be a lesson to you.