If your headline does not promise something of interest then your article won’t get read and you’ll struggle to capture the attention of your demographic. This is because most visitors arrive at a page, read a headline and then make a decision to stay or go.

Also, if a page is linked to, from elsewhere on your own site or others then your headline is likely to be used for the link. When reading headlines, potential readers are looking for what a page might do for them. They are looking for benefits and if your headline does not deliver, they are gone.

Here are a few guidelines for headline writing:

• Promise benefits – tell readers what the content will do for them.
• Don’t be clever or obscure and don’t make the reader think too much.
• Don’t be ironic because most readers won’t know you are being ironic.
• Don’t force readers to read the story in order to understand the headline.
• Try asking a question about a problem and entice with the solution.