Tips 1-6: Headlines

Increase click-throughs with titles that pique curiosity and promise value

#1 It's all about "you"

If there's one undeniable truth about human behavior, it's that people are incredibly interested in themselves. Using words like "you" or "your" has been proven to work better than using ‘we’ in brand literature and communications.

Professor Nick Lee of the Warwick Business School partnered with Corporate Visions to research you-phrasing vs we-phrasing. You-phrasing, or writing with the second person pronoun “you” is a long-touted copywriting technique – and beat “we” in every test.

#2 Questions + self-reference

The curiosity gap is the space between what we know and what we don't – and it plays a key role in all top-funnel writing. Framing a headline as a question opens up a new curiosity gap in your reader, which can dramatically increase click-throughs.

Betteridge’s Law of Headlines is a new spin on the traditional journalistic “question in the title” technique. Betteridge calls out lazy clickbait by suggesting that if a question title can be answered with a “no” it means the following content is under-researched and underwhelming, eg: “Have we arrived at world peace?” Well, no.

Let’s look at framing a question that applies to your audience. One of the greatest copywriters of the 20th century, Victor Schwab, can help us out here.

Schwab took Sherwin Cody’s famous advertising headline: "Do you make these mistakes in English?” He analyzed 10 years’ worth of customer enquiry data and resulting revenue before publishing a 1939 report that came to the same conclusion as a study 74 years later.

Just like Schwab, Norweigan professor Linda Lai and writer Audun Farbrot found that question headlines with self-referencing cues are more impactful than other types of question titles.

Beyond adding “you” to a question title, look to ask the questions your audience is asking. Survey your customers and use engagement data to understand intent.

#3 Humanize with emotion

The Lessons Learned study looked at the effect of emotional language on clicks for 105k headlines and
370m impressions.

The result? Negativity drives news consumption
rates, but what about marketing content?

Watch our emotional hooks webinar for writing techniques

Once the fastest-growing media outlet in the world, Upworthy’s success was entirely directed by emotional data.

A pioneer of A/B testing, Upworthy
randomly tested up to 16 differing
headlines per story before editors
distributed winning hooks at large.
The historical data from these extensive headline experiments has earned itself a proper noun, the Upworthy Research
Archive - and it’s been put to good use.

#4 It's a numbers game

The wait for an Uber isn't actually shorter than the wait for a cab, but it feels like it is because we know exactly how many minutes we need to wait. Headlines are the same.

When you give busy people an expectation number, say “5 ways to…”, the transparency makes the time investment feel like less of a big deal.

Copywriters have always loved numbers. They’re easily digested and backed by studies confirming news including being perceived as more credible.

The Content Marketing Institute found blog titles with numbers gained 45% more clicks, echoing Conductor’s previous survey on headline types.

If you're asking about listicles, read on. Buzzumo found the number 10 performs best on socials and Venngage arrived at the same conclusion for blog shares.

Odd numbers generally perform best overall, but it’s wise to let research dictate your article. Presenting a clear expectation of what's to follow could be more important than choosing the ‘correct’ number.

An alternative to asking a question, the "how to" headline is another way to open a curiosity gap. It also suggests that your content is going to be practical, so it's important to meet that expectation if you don't want your reader to bounce as soon as they realize they've been duped.. This can also be said of “what,” “how,” and “why.”

In a survey by Conductor "how to" headlines were voted the third most clickable, and almost made second place.

Why are they so popular? It all comes down to clarity – people are drowning in information online. They want to learn new things and a direct "how to" headline allows them to instantly see whether that's something they want to learn or not.

#5 How to...

An alternative to asking a question, the "how to" headline is another way to open a
curiosity gap.

It also suggests that your content is going to be practical, so it's important to actually meet that expectation if you don't want your reader to bounce as soon as they realize they've been duped by yet another fluff piece.

#6 Positive vibes

Should you use a negative or positive title? How do each affect readability and understanding?

Using Semrush data, Backlinko analyzed 4 million Google search results and found that click-through rates improved by around 4% for content with a positive title. The case against clickbaity titles is real.

Studies have shown that positive messaging improves the performance of reasoning and social cognition tasks (our unique ability to interpret information and behave appropriately). Even a negatively framed text message can deter recipients’ goals – but for news articles, it seems we’re titillated by downbeat headlines.