Having a sustainable and healthy content marketing plan, complete with headlines, is a great way to grow your leads and customer base organically. In this content marketing, you will undoubtedly have blogs and articles somewhere in the mix. Hopefully, it is a healthy part of your marketing plan, as information not only grows your following but improves your reputation.
As you work on your content creation, it is important to offer worthwhile content that supports your target audience. However, you should not ignore the importance of the headlines you create. You need to make sure that they are attractive to both your readers and the Google algorithm in order to ensure that your hard work on your content creation is fruitful.
Headlines that Work
As you are crafting your perfect headlines, you need to keep a few things in mind that will entice your readers. There are key aspects that make them more attractive to readers. Keep in mind, these factors change over time. So, what is ideal for 2022 will not be ideal for 2026.
Size Matters
The length makes a big difference in the click-through rate. A good headline gives enough information to entice the reader to either click on the article or just simply to continue reading. This means the short and snappy headlines of the past are no longer best practices. The current ideal length is 11 words and/or 65 characters. This gives your readers enough information to know what the article will be about without spoiling the ending.
Numbers
Numbers in headlines are a great way to grab the attention of your reader. However, when you are using numbers, you need to remember that readers like quick facts and information. Therefore, the numbers that you feature should be 10 or less. In fact, the number 10 is the most preferred number. The next highest-ranking clickthrough numbers are the digits 3-9.
As a reader, having only 1 or 2 “tips or tricks” (or whatever you are writing about) may not be worth the reader’s time to click and load the article. Where 3-9 gives them enough information to make reading the article worth their time. More than 10 items to read about could seem like “too much work” or too time-consuming for a reader.
Headlines for Social Media
Social media headlines are key to a great content marketing plan. 81% of adults in the United States have social media, so targeting these audiences is vital to your business. While a perfectly crafted headline can work for all forms of social media, there are some rules that apply to each individual social media platform. Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube have different target audiences. Due to this differentiation, what is attractive to one platform’s users will not work as well on others.
The most successful headlines on Facebook are instructional or from respected news sites. Other popular options have trigrams in them. Trigrams are sets of 3 words. For example, a popular trigram on Facebook is “of the year.”
Twitter’s most popular ones are called curiosity headlines. This is where the content of the article is teased or questioned. Twitter also is known for sharing YouTube headlines and videos with great click-through rates.
YouTube
The highest-rated YouTube headlines are ‘how to’s and sensational titles. Hyperbole is great for the YouTube audience. Examples include ‘the truth about,’ ‘in the world,’ and ‘the power of’.
Headlines that Don’t Work
Just as there are certain things that you need to include in your headlines, there are also words and phrases that you need to avoid. In the past, phrases that tugged at emotions were very successful. However, emotional titles can now come across as clickbait and have the opposite effect of what you were intending. Some examples of emotional titles include, “make you cry” or “shocked to see.”
Get Help with Your Headlines
If you are excited about the possibilities that headlines offer you and your company but don’t have the time to write your own, let GreenStar Marketing help you out! We are a dedicated team of marketing specialists that are focused and experienced in the telecommunications field. Contact us today to get started with better headlines and content marketing!
