4 Must-See Tips for Writing Powerful Blog Headlines

Are you looking for a way to increase traffic, sales, and engagement? If so, it may be time to think about your content marketing strategy. Specifically, you should focus on improving your company blog and keeping potential customers on your website.

Believe it or not, a whopping 77% of internet users read blog posts. The content you produce on your site can help new people find your company and will keep existing customers engaged for years to come.

Before a consumer clicks on a blog post, the first thing they look at is the headline. It doesn’t matter if you wrote the most informative, valuable piece of content on the internet; if your headline isn’t eye-catching, very few people will read what you have to say.

The good news is you can boost your conversions by tweaking and enhancing your article titles. We will go over several must-see tips that you can use to improve your blog headlines and build your audience.

Think about the Needs of Your Audience

Let’s get one thing out of the way; if you want to get more blog traffic, you need to publish content that resonates with your audience. Many business owners and marketing teams make the mistake of assuming they know what their visitors want to read.

While it’s fine to make educated guesses when coming up with blog topics, you should have data to support your ideas. After all, actionable data is what makes a guess educated, as opposed to a total shot in the dark.

The best way to get to this point is to carefully analyze your target audience. We recommend looking at your website, social media, and email data so you can learn about the needs and pain points of your audience. The more you know about your customers, the more opportunities you’ll have to create top-notch headlines.

You can also create surveys across all of these different channels. This will give your subscribers and customers a chance to tell you what kind of content they want to see in the future. For instance, if over half of your survey responses talk about one pain point not addressed on your blog, you can bet that an article on that same topic would be a hit with readers.

Before you start coming up with topic ideas, it’s essential that you carefully consider the needs of current and future customers.

Choose the Right Keywords

In order to create compelling titles, you need to choose the right SEO keywords. A shocking 68% of all online experiences start with a search engine. So, if you want people to read your content, you have to use words and phrases that people frequently search for online.

Combine this information with the fact that 95% of searchers stop on the first page of Google search results, and it’s easy to see why optimizing your titles for search engines is crucial for visibility and engagement.

One of the best ways to find keywords for your titles and content is with Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool gives you the ability to look up industry-specific keywords and compare the search volume to the competition. So, if you want to rank for a new keyword, make sure the word has a medium-high search volume and a medium-low competition.

If the words you choose have a low search volume, you may not see a significant traffic jump. On the other hand, it’s not easy to rank for a highly competitive keyword. Once you find words or phrases that fit these criteria, you can start brainstorming topic ideas.

Create Title Variants

Now, let’s get to the exciting part — coming up with topic ideas. One mistake to avoid here is coming up with one idea and writing your content around that concept. You’ll find that topics can change drastically from inception to publication.

We suggest brainstorming a list of 15-30 headline variants after you come up with an idea. You’ll find that the variations are often stronger than the original topic.

So, if you have a site that sells cooking supplies, you may think that a topic like “How to Make Perfect Hardboiled Eggs” would lead to more traffic. But by brainstorming this idea and coming up with variants, you open the door to so many more possibilities.

By the time you’re done, you may have a list with compelling topic ideas such as:

  • 10 Mouth-Watering Ways to Include Eggs in Your Lunch
  • 5 Egg-cellent Meals You Can Prepare in Under an Hour
  • Deviled Eggs 101: 5 Tips for Success

In reality, every topic mentioned above can become its own standalone article. Brainstorming title variants can help you improve the article you’re writing now and plan for the future.

We suggest making list-style topics a big part of your brainstorming sessions. Research indicates that 36% of online users prefer list-based headlines.

It’s worth noting that you may not finish your session in one sitting. Sometimes, walking away and letting the ideas come to you is the way to go.

Test and Evaluate

Finally, we recommend testing and evaluating your headlines over time. You’ll, without a doubt, create posts that don’t get the results you were expecting. Instead of looking at these instances as failures, view them as learning experiences.

If you can figure out why your post didn’t get the traffic or conversions you expected, you can avoid making the same mistake in the future.

You can also A/B test your headlines on your website. A/B testing is when you use two of your variant headlines and split who sees each post 50/50. The goal is to see which headline gets more traffic and conversions. So, if you see that one variant has a 60% click-through rate and another has 5%, it’s easy to see which one is more effective.

Content marketing is not something you’ll master overnight. You have to spend time learning about your customers, researching keywords, and brainstorming topic ideas. If you use the tips outlined here today, you could start to see a gradual climb in traffic and sales, which is essential for long-term growth.

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Author: Syed Balkhi

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