

Ask HN: How to write great headlines - grep

"According to David Ogilvy (one of the greatest ad men ever), five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy of your advertisement. It may be the only chance you get to make a statement." Source: urbachletter.com<p>The statement is right for any business. Knowing how to write great headlines for your articles and post is as important as the content.<p>How do you become good in this "art" ? Do you have any book recommendation, blog posts, tips ?
======
rphlx
Study mashable. They use a bunch of patterns that are simple, direct,
enticing, appeal to ego/self-improvement (for men) or create an emotional
response (for women). Apparently this works superbly w/ their ADD social media
targets.

1\. "Top X ways to [blah]"

2\. "HOW TO: Find the greatest [blah]"

3\. "[blah] will save you time/money"

4\. "[apple product] [blah]"

5\. "X finally becomes cool"

6\. "X + Y = [blah]"

7\. "World's cutest kittehs: [blah]"

8\. "[Big company/other trusted/loved/hated party] [blah]"

etc

~~~
coryl
These kinds of posts is a reason I hate reading mashable. Well, not really
hate, but prefer other blogs over them because the content is of lesser
quality.

~~~
rphlx
Agreed but HN readers are not their primary targets. For an INTJ the key to
mass marketing is to understand why patterns that you don't like work on
people unlike you.

P.S. I'm not sorry for not using another pattern on you.

------
emanuer
Test your headline with a short Adwords campaing to find out what version
works best. Tim Ferris did this for his book "The 4 hour workweek"

[http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/read-this-post-to-find-
out...](http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/read-this-post-to-find-out-exactly-
what-you-need-to-know-about-calls-to-action/) Increased conversion rate from
0.3% to 4% in only on hour by adding the words get/download in a max 80 signs
ad.

List of Call to action phrases:

    
    
        * Get…
        * Download…
        * Click Here to…
        * Press the…
        * Enter your…
      
    

<http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/documents/972_01.pdf> Don't throw away
the junk mail:

1\. Guilt: “Because of the way blah blah blah has been treated, you owe it to
them to help.”

2\. Patriotism: “The American way of life may disappear if you do not support
us on this.”

3\. Greed: “You could earn 10,000 dollars just by sending us 10 dollars. Don’t
miss out on this opportunity. Act Now!”

4\. Compassion: “For just 36 cents a day you could help this starving child.”

5\. Snobbery: “You are among the few hand selected people to receive this
special offer!! “

Other Resources:

<http://www.copyblogger.com/copywriting-101/>

<http://www.clicknewz.com/free/32ConversionTriggers.pdf>

------
edash
Here's a process that's worked for me:

1\. Lay out a few general themes you think will resonate with the user/reader.

    
    
      - What problem does this solve?
    
      - What's the end result?
    
      - What's the most interesting nugget of info here?
    

2\. Write a few headlines for each of your overarching themes.

3\. Take each and edit for clarity. This usually (but not always) means
choosing simpler words and shorter phrases.

4\. Finally, take your best headline from 2-3 themes and split-test them to
see which is most effective.

With this process you'll get data to help you write better headlines and
you'll gain a deeper understanding of your user/reader.

------
il
Read copywriting books:

    
    
      -David Ogilvy
      -John Caples
      -Claude Hopkins
      -Eugene Schwartz
    

Many of these have large sections devoted exclusively to writing headlines.

------
fictorial
I am not sure for a blog or article, but since you are asking on HN, I for one
would like to see less sensationalism and more straightfoward, objective
summaries. Less "linkbait".

------
mattgratt
Better Headlines thru... Cosmo and Twitter?

This is going to sound stupid, but if you really want to learn how to write
for the internet, read Cosmo. Yes, the magazine with the quizzes and the sex
tips. Their headlines are excellent, if somewhat insulting to intelligent
people.

The other thing is that it's great for learning to connect headlines back to
quantitative results, so you can see what works and what doesn't. For
instance, tweet a link once a week w/ a different headline and a shortened
link, and track the click-thru against the headline. This is a great way to
learn to write headlines.

Also check out Neil Patel's blogging and copyblogger. Both of those should be
read at both the content level (ie what is he actually saying) and at the
meta-level (ie how does he use his headline? What sort of structure does he
use?)

------
byrneseyeview
<http://www.infomarketingblog.com> is a good place to start. The author is a
copywriter who aggregates successful ads (e.g. the ones with measurable
results, that get used again and again). I've read it from start to finish a
couple times.

Start with this one, which answers your question at length:

[http://www.infomarketingblog.com/100-good-advertising-
headli...](http://www.infomarketingblog.com/100-good-advertising-headlines-
victor-schwab/)

------
webwright
Read "Made to Stick". Here's a summary of the book:

Sticky ideas:

1\. are simple 2\. are unexpected 3\. are concrete 4\. are credible 5\. elicit
emotion 6\. tell stories

(<http://www.madetostick.com/excerpts/>)

Next, google "Linkbait titles" and spend a few hours reading the top 20
results or so.

~~~
jheitzeb
Reading it now actually. Wow, great book...!

------
petercooper
Practice, practice, practice.. it's the 10,000 hour thing, but magnified. Back
in the dot com boom, I was first a writer and then an editor and yet while I
excelled with the writing, my titles sucked and were always rewritten! A
decade later, I'm finally getting some great headlines _now and then_ and I've
been trying hard.

------
thibaut_barrere
<http://www.copyblogger.com/> is an interesting read on that topic.

------
lamnk
Spend some minutes thinking about how people talk/search about your topic then
include some keywords in the title. It does help if what you want is traffic.

------
jheitzeb
Get a blog and a Twitter account and just start. Soon enough you will discover
what works

------
ahoyhere
Well you _could_ read David Ogilvy's book... _or_ you could ask a bunch of
hackers who don't generally pay that much attention to such things.

Just an idea.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Thanks for the book suggestion!

On your idea: this is on HN homepage, so it appears the bunch of hackers could
be actually paying more attention to such things than you seem to believe.

~~~
ahoyhere
Yes, and the answers are either pure (crummy) tactics ("X Crazy Cat
Pictures!") or sensible book recommendations which barely get any votes. It
turned into a "wahh I hate when people use these tactics on me, I am a super
brain and I don't like that they work" brouhaha.

