The headline is arguably the most important part of any blog entry or Web page you write. The headline is the first thing your reader will see—and what’s the old saying about first impressions? If your headline doesn’t strike the reader’s interest, it’s simply not very likely that the rest of the content will get read—and as such, the best content in the world can be rendered all but useless by a weak or unengaging headline.

As such, it’s worth spending some time identifying the best possible headline for each piece of content you write; it’s worth studying up on the best practices for headline development.

Writing Headlines that Grab the Reader’s Attention

Here are some tips to get you started.

A headline should be descriptive. You want to provide the reader with some sense of what the content is about—not just the topic, but the angle you’re going to take. That’s why puns and wordplay usually don’t work well as headlines: While they may be funny, they’re seldom descriptive.

A headline should be accurate, too. Your content needs to earn the reader’s trust—so luring them in with the promise of one thing, then writing about something else altogether, is not recommended. The bait-and-switch technique is frowned upon by search engines, as well.

Avoid clickbait. It may be hard to define clickbait, but you know it when you see it. Basically, you want to avoid headlines that exaggerate or mislead. You want your content to be able to live up to any promises you make in the headline.

Make the headline self-supporting. Your headline should be its own complete statement—something that provides the reader with everything he or she needs to know in order to decide whether or not to read the article. Remember that your headline will likely appear in tweets and Facebook posts, so it needs to be enticing even without any additional context.

Brevity is key. You want your entire headline to show up on a Google Search Engine Results Page, without it being truncated. As such, you probably want to aim for no more than 55 characters total. Look at every word of your headline before you commit to it, and remove whatever’s inessential.

Keywords help, but don’t overdo it. A keyword can help give focus to your headline, but you don’t want to sacrifice readability or be too ham-fisted. A long-tail keyword like best dentists in Charlotte, NC will be tough to work into every blog post, so be judicious.

Convey value. Ultimately, your content needs to provide the reader with information that is actionable—and your headline should communicate roughly what that value is. That’s why How-To and list-style headlines are so popular. They make it clear what the reader stands to gain by reading the article.

Track results! As always, analytics is key. Experiment with different headline styles and setups, and see which ones work and which ones don’t.

Writing good headlines is the capstone for your content marketing efforts—but of course, there’s a lot more to integrated marketing than that. To have a conversation about the development of a full, robust marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to contact the enCOMPASS team today.