Five Tips for Writing Effective Web Headlines

article by Bejaan

by Ginger Makela

So, you've refined your keywords, optimized your bids, and written AdWords text ads that pull in tons of targeted clicks, but after looking at your Google Analytics reports, you realize that your landing page has a bounce rate of 91%.

Which means that 91% of the users coming to your site are quickly glancing around and leaving, deciding immediately that this site isn't for them.

With a bounce rate like that, it's time to optimize your landing page to keep people on your site longer. But, how do you know what changes to make?

One of the easiest, low-tech ways to make users stick around and look at your products or services is to catch their attention with an engaging headline.

Recent research suggests that users decide to stay or leave your site in 8 seconds or less, and headlines are the one piece of copy that users will actually scan in that short amount of time.

That makes your headline a key piece of real estate on your site. So, writing headlines that engage users is going to be an important part of your landing page optimization plan.

Here are five tips for writing headlines that will pull user attention.
Include your paid keyword in the headline.

And as close to the beginning of the headline as you can. When users land on your site after clicking on a text ad or organic listing, they're a bit nervous.

They have a good idea of what they're looking for, and hope that your site will deliver it, but they're a bit skeptical. And they have a good reason to be; there are a lot of junky sites out there that don't deliver.

Putting the keyword in the headline provides split-second assurance to visitors that they are in the right place. It will make them relax a bit and be more receptive to your message.

Don't sound like an ad.

The average American is bombarded with thousands of advertising messages per day and our brains have developed sophisticated filters to keep most of those messages out.

Sometimes, the best way to get past that filter is to not sound like an ad. Instead of sounding like an overbearing salesperson, try to sound like a friend delivering valuable information.

For example, instead of:

Fabulous Skin Cream that Makes a Difference!

Try

5 Ways to Reduce Wrinkles in 30 Days.

Highlight benefits rather than features.

Instead of rattling off the cold facts about your product or service, think about what problem your product or service will solve for your user.

Instead of

E-mail with up to 2GB of Storage

Try

Never Throw Another E-mail Away

Make headlines look easy to read.

When our eyes are moving fast looking for something particular, we tend to ignore copy that looks like it will take too much effort to read.

So, make your headline as simple and direct as possible.

Instead of using 3- and 4-syllable Latinate words whose meaning is not obvious at a glance, try using choppier, punchier Anglo-Saxon words.

For example, instead of

Deploy Robust Data Recovery Solutions and Enhance Network Availability

Try

5 Things You Need to Protect Your Data

Don't forget subheads.

Subheads are another easy way to quickly offer more information about your product. Similar to headlines, they're usually a piece of text users will be likely to scan.

Let's say you're an e-tailer and your landing page is a specific product page, with the product name serving as the page's headline. A subhead that offers visitors a quick preview of product benefits saves them the trouble of digging benefits out of user reviews and product descriptions that are often visually buried on the page.

Instead of

Unwired Skoba? Computer Satchel

Try

Unwired Skoba? Computer Satchel
Patented protection system cushions your laptop with shock-absorbing, air-filled pouches.

One more thing.

Try testing different headlines to see which ones minimize bounce rates and result in the most clickthroughs to conversion. For example, you might set up different versions of the same landing page and send visitors at random to the different versions. You could then compare the bounce rates for each of your landing page versions. You might also review the Top Content report to see how long people stayed on each version of the landing page. And, you can review the Site Overlay for each of these pages to see exactly where the visitors are clicking and how frequently those clicks resulted in an eventual conversion.