Headlines That Help You Stand Out

It Took Me 11 Months To Boost My Readership. Boost Yours in Just 4 Minutes

Lessons From My 11-Month Writing Practice

Name the one thing that’s common among writers, content creators, artists, and businesses.

They are all searching for readers, an audience — someone who’ll give them a few precious seconds of their fleeting attention.

With so much noise going on around us, grabbing attention is a skill, an art in the 21st century.

If you aren’t actively honing this skill, you are missing out and leaving things to chance.

And we all know what happens when you leave things to chance. Someone better prepared comes along and takes away the pie.

There are studies, applications, websites, books, experts and courses dedicated to the craft of grabbing attention and boosting readership.

I’ve done some extensive work over the last year in learning how to grab attention with my headlines.

So, without further ado, let’s get into 5 tips you can use to boost your readership.

✅ Dream Outcome

Stoke a person's curiosity by promising them their dream outcome in the headline.

For example:

Lose Your Stubborn Belly Fat in 90 Days Without Going on a Diet. OR Master a New Language in Six Months: Your Dream of Becoming a Fluent Speaker Starts Today.

In this case, you are promising to take a person from point A to point B with your headline.

This usually generates curiosity and drives people to click.

✅ Tap into their Curiosity

Creators on YouTube do a phenomenal job at this. It’s like you are tapping into a secret need that the user has but hasn’t been able to achieve yet.

For example:

What Happened When I Wrote an Article Every Day for 300 Days Straight. OR What Happens When You Sleep Less Than 6 Hours? The Surprising Science Explained.

The first headline is created by yours truly. I’ve shamelessly plugged it in since it is my most popular article.

You guys showed so much interest in this article that I had to share it.

These are pretty generic. Applicable to a large population.

The second example talks about sleep, something that each of us can relate to. Words like “surprising”, “science”, “explained”, etc. generate a lot of curiosity.

✅ What’s Newsworthy?

Alex Hormozi talks about this in his podcast and elsewhere.

He asks you to pay attention to newsworthy things.

Stuff like…

• Recency — how recently did the story occur? How long ago did it happen? Older stories have a lesser impact.
• Impact of the event — why is this important to you? Otherwise, people will not care.
• Prominence — Kim Kardashian's sneezing is a lot more prominent than someone randomly sneezing.
• Proximity — how close was this happening to the reader? A house burning vs your neighbour's house burning.
• Conflict — People love conflict and gossip. Green Energy Promise: Hype or Hope for a Sustainable Future?
• Unusual — Anything that is odd or bizarre. I’ve written about this before but check this out “Pepsi’s $32 Billion Typo Caused Deadly Riots.”

This is a great way to add nuances to your headlines and draw more people to it.

✅ Life or Death Situations

One of my readers Oleg Deem commented on one of my earlier posts.

He suggested making everything sound like a life-or-death situation.

For Example:

Your Privacy on the Brink: How One Wrong Click Could Expose Your Entire Digital Life. OR Ignoring This Simple Diet Change Could Seriously Jeopardize Your Health.

These can borderline with clickbaity headlines. So you as a creator have to be clear and confident about how you’d like to present it.

I’ve learned that a headline that’s perceived too good to be true (even if it is true) doesn’t get as much attention because people are fatigued with clickbaity content.

✅ Other Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks

• Use numbers — it helps your content stand out. People process numbers well. It sets the expectation.
• Use Call To Action Words — Words like start, join, discover, boost, transform, etc. signify movement. It helps people take action.
• Promise — guarantee, certify, confirm, swear, declare, etc. These words help build trust faster.
• Comparison — if you do this, y will happen. This person did this and that happened. The human mind thrives on comparison. Make use of this knowledge.

If you happen to enjoy this, I’m sure you’ll love this article. I break down my process and the tools I use to craft my headlines.

Headlines have the biggest impact on your life as a writer and a creator. It can single-handedly change your life.

I’ve been practising this for over 11 months. I hope you learned something of value and are ready to implement it in your writing.

Any specific tip that you enjoyed reading? What is it that you can’t wait to try?