Hello, fellow person whose job it is to build content engagement.
Let’s talk about the importance of page taglines (title, headline, whatever you want to call it).
The single purpose of a headline is to hook the attention of your readers, so that they become willing to spend more time interacting with your content.
Your Call To Action is moot if they never even get that far.
By the way, this also applies to headlines in your paid ad campaigns and email subject lines – you have to convince recipients to even click. Follow this guide and watch your click-through and open rates rise.
This is not an article you want to skim.
Set aside some time to cover this topic thoroughly, make notes, and let us know what questions you have.
How to Start
Writing headlines can be tricky, but there are some formulas and tools to help us out.
Let’s begin with some introductory thoughts to help frame our mindset:
Perhaps you have too many ideas, and can’t seem to focus on one and get started?
Headline Formulas
There are lots of methods / formulas available, so it doesn’t have to be difficult to get started.
Here are some common formulas along with a couple examples for each one.
Not saying they are amazing, but should give you some ideas:
“Have a / Become a (Desirable Thing) you can be proud of” : self-image driven
- • “Build a business to be proud of” tested well for our audience.
- • “Become a professional with skills you can be proud of.”
“We do (X) for (Y)
- • “We help offices stay fresh” (cleaning company)
- • “Acme helps keep construction sites safe.”
“Finally achieve (XYZ)
- • “Finally achieve financial independence”
- • “Finally organize your data”
“Be the (ABC)
- • “Be the confident financial professional.”
- • “Be the go-to expert in your industry.”
More formulas and guides – https://copyhackers.com/?s=headlines
Remember
Focus on positive outcomes, rather than avoiding negativity.
People don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves / their business / their department.
It will take time to find what works best.
Ideas come from a variety of sources, and are not on-demand.
Even after you’ve run an initial test (details on how to do so at the end), it’s always fine to run another with new ideas.
In fact, doing so at least annually will help you keep up with changes in the popularity of terminology, changes in your target demographic, etc.
Optimization is an ongoing process.
Tagline Examples
This one is lengthy, but that is okay because it works!
The image doesn’t have anything to do with their service, but does match their primary demographic (students).
That’s fine, you want to make them feel welcome, then steer them towards your solutions.
Zoom’s headline is concise, and immediately appeals to a primary concern for larger organizations struggling to maintain consistency.
Inspiration for this likely came from customer and prospect feedback.
The more feedback you can get, the better!
Who better to talk to find pain points, language used, and desired outcomes?
Customer interviews can have a huge impact on business success.
Testing
Google Optimize is an amazing tool for testing multiple headlines without having to set up a bunch of time-consuming A/B infrastructure.
The best part is if displays actionable reports and tracks all the relevant statistics for you.
Integration with Google Analytics will allow you to see which headlines provide the best interaction with you site.
Selecting goals that will provide meaningful insights can be tricky if you haven’t done it before.
Nexus can help with that, of course.
For email subject lines, most platforms offer A/B testing and reports.
The data won’t be as detailed, but you should still see a difference as long as your sample size is large enough.