When writing a piece for your blog or website, it is crucial that you create a compelling headline. After all, if a reader is not enthralled by your headline, they will likely skip over your article. Yet, here are 7 tips on how to write a provocative headline to keep people interested:
1. Use numbers.
People love seeing lists that contain numbers because they often make for quick reading. Numbered lists are also a great way of sharing important information in short bursts. For instance, such example titles with numbers may include:
- Top 10 Laptops
- 15 Ways to Better Your Garden
- 7 Steps for Making a Fish Tank Divider
2. Use adjectives.
Adjectives are words that describe nouns. If you want to make the nouns more interesting, using adjectives will make your headline pop. For instance, such example headlines may include:
- How You Can Effortlessly Clean Your Leather Furniture
- Beautiful Horse Figurines for Horse Lovers
- Incredible Indian Food You Must Try
3. Ask a question.
Another great way of tempting people to click through to your content is to pose a question in the headline or title. For instance, here are just a few headline examples:
- How Can You Save Money on Your Home Insurance?
- What 2021 Car Is the Most Eco Friendly?
- What Does Your Hairstyle Say About You?
As you can see, such titles may cause people to click through to discover the answer.
20 replies on “How to Write a Provocative Headline”
Really Nice ! article … i have been using The Number tip Thank you for other I’ll be using other 🙂
Thanks a lot for sharing !!!
Awesome article … i have been using the first tip i.e. Number tip Thank you for other I’ll be using other 🙂
Thanks a lot for sharing !!!
sorry for 2nd other comment as there was some error in Captcha reading !!
No problem my friend
Proper heading can improve your ranking in search engines results. Thanks for mentioning the good point.
I agree that titles need to say what’s its about and should be written to attract attention! This helps with everything from google search to commentluv to social media. It’s the most important factor. – Scott Craighead
Catchy post headline is very compulsory as well as the content, so it will keep blog visitors coming back, our headline should work inline with our blog content. nice tips here
This is really wonderful, the first thing that attract readers to blog is the title, either catchy or appealing, it’s very necessary if really one need to drive huge traffic to his blog. thanks for this wonderful post.
[…] How to Write a Provocative Headline published on July 27, 2013. Â So far getting shared with 8 fb like, 0 g+, 3 tweet, 2 inshare. […]
Hi Edward,
These are great tips – I love headlines and always have fun trying to come up with a killer for my posts. Something I think you have to be wary of, though, is to make sure your headline isn’t misleading – you do need to deliver on what you promise!
Sue
i came across your blog just to look, but i had to leave this comment to say how much i appreciate your work. thanks for the help.
Hello Okto,
Indeed, writing attractive titles can indeed do wonders to any blog. with the help of commentluv, your catchy headline will definitely help get traffic from the places you leave a comments and also you will get more clicks from search engines.
I always advice every blogger looking for traffic to start with a catchy blog title to help boost traffic. Thanks for this lovely post and do have a blessed week ahead… 🙂
Hi Babanature,
Yup, having great title and put it in comluv is definitely good way to attract more visitors
Hi Sue,
Thanks to Edward for this post! I do agree Sue, missleading headline is the worst nightmare for readers. Its important to avoid such situation
Quotations in headline-style titles can now be capitalized headline-style along with the rest of the title. 8.160.
Most content writers are struggling to approach this method of writing headlines. I must say that this is really worth reading and be bookmarked.
That last tip and the example you provided were awesome! Combining two unrelated things! I will try it for sure in future. Thanks for the tips bro!
Yup, I do agree with you Arun. Its really compelling to click on. You are very welcome.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving us great feedback
[…] Headline takes important role since this is what visitors see for the very first time they land on this blog. One of guest bloggers (Edward Olson) has elaborated this matters profoundly, so I think all I need to say is already explained in his guest post here. […]
[…] Make Provocative Headline – several press releases are published on various websites, newspapers, magazines, etc every day. Therefore, oftentimes readers ignore this information that is given to them through email. If you want to avoid this condition, you need to make provocative headline that will grab your audiences’ attention. It is not necessary to be offensive but something that will quickly grab their focus and will attract them to know further about the press release. (Read more: How to Write Provocative Headline) […]