17 Characteristics of a Great Headline That’ll Earn More $$$

Inspired by Tim Denning’s course

I finally got around to watching the first episode of Tim Denning’s free course on growing your Medium earnings recently. The first session is about headlines — how to write great ones that deliver reads. These are my key takeaways from the session:

1. Write headlines every day. It helps you generate ideas for stories, and it helps you get into the practice of writing good headlines.
2. Ask yourself, what does your headline add to the conversation? What different thoughts are you adding to what we know already on the subject?
3. Test ideas on social media — does a statement on Twitter get a lot of traction? Perhaps it would make a good headline!
4. Look at your top highlights on your Medium stories — these are the bits that most resonated with people, so they might provide inspiration for great headlines.
5. Write your headline before you write the story. Don’t leave it until you’ve finished. Writing the headline first gives you a clear focus for your story. If you have the headline in mind, you can make sure your article delivers on the headline — so it’s not rambling and lacking focus. You can also bring the whole article back to the headline at the end of your piece.
6. Ask yourself, why should a reader care about your story? What is in it for the reader? Explain in the subtitle, if not the headline, how this will affect the reader.
7. Make the headline a bold claim and know the difference between clickable — a good story that delivers on its promises, and clickbait, which doesn’t deliver on its promises and is instead, a disappointing read.
8. The headline should be the best bit in your 1000-word story.
9. Write with clarity — don’t use words that aren’t widely understood in your headline.
10. Headlines on Medium get chopped off on the preview pane after 100 characters, so bear that in mind and get everything you want to, into the first 100 characters. This may or may not include the subtitle.
11. If your headline sucks, your story will probably suck. Focus on the headline and work it out from there.
12. Sometimes the subtitle is better than the headline. You could switch them around or blend them. I’ve done this a number of times because Tim’s absolutely right on this one.
13. Tim suggests having either a long headline accompanied by a short subheading, or vice versa.
14. Choose the most bizarre point from your story to catch people’s attention in the headline.
15. Use numbers in headlines, so people know exactly what to expect when, for example, you’re offering a read about ‘5 ways to improve your life’.
16. Be specific about what people can expect, so in the example above, tell them how the actions in this story will improve their life.
17. Headline analysers also look for emotional words, power words, and a nice balance between common and uncommon words.

Do you have any more tips for great headlines?

© Susie Kearley 2023. All Rights Reserved.

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