The answer is simple: the headlines appeal to emotion.
For many businesses, especially those focusing on SEO and boosting their rank with Google, headlines that target emotion have not always been the focus of content marketing.
However, with the “content is king” motto pounding in everyone’s ears for the upcoming years, adjusting your content marketing strategies to appeal to both Google’s tracking methods and users’ emotions has an increased importance. And it starts with headlines — catchy ones that both inform and trigger users to click.
In the past, headlines were short and filled with keywords in order to attract the search engines. While this traditional, SEO-based headline hasn’t died completely, content is now becoming more and more related to user experience.
Even though you want Google to find your content and use it to help you rank, you still need to think about how your customer base is searching.
Your most successful blog posts might exactly match the phrases users are searching for. We’ll go into some examples below, but this is why “How to” posts are extremely popular; a lot of users are perusing Google to answer their questions. If you can make your business’s content appropriate and on target with what users are searching for, your headlines won’t be stale and your blog posts’ rank will benefit.
It’s a proven fact that five times as many people will read your headline versus your actual body copy.
And when it comes to writing content for pages, don’t use the same headline for the article and the page; after all, the page title is really for the search engines, and the article title is to catch users’ attention. This gives you the freedom to focus on what users are searching for and what headlines will attract them, while still having consideration for your SEO efforts.
Readers love top 10 lists, because they’re easy to skim and trigger emotion and shock factors.
A post with the headline “____ vs. ____” can be one of the smartest ways to mirror the way users search.
If you’re responding to an exciting, perplexing question, your headline will be even catchier and will definitely appeal to users’ curiosity and emotion.
If you’re comparing your own products or services, this will help target users who are searching for either one! A headline that involves a comparison is also something that sparks curiosity and can attract new users, because it shows you’re looking out for them and giving them facts about both products.
Finding ways to create headlines that appeal to users, while still benefiting SEO, can be challenging, but extremely rewarding if you end up creating something viral.
I am an experienced business analyst and digital marketing visionary, and co-author of 14 digital marketing guides. I have worked with top Blue Chip companies as well as smaller businesses in the…
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