How to Write Clickable Headlines That Attract People To Your Website
Read carefully to understand how to attract more traffic to your website or webpages through clickable headlines that get clicked on Google Search Engine Results Page!
Do you know that Google accounts for more than 70 percent of the total search market share and about 85 percent of mobile traffic? This makes Google the most popular and most used search engine followed by Bing.
With over 6.8 Billion searches daily and about 2.5 trillion searches yearly, having your presence on Google can never be optional. If you are not on Google, you don’t exist.
Google search remains where most buying journeys start. More so, Google search is also the only sustainable and scalable source of free traffic to your website.
So being on Google’s first SERP either through paid ads or effective SEO practices is essential for your business.
However, the organic click-through rate (CTR) is reportedly decreasing across the page. In May 2014, the top searches had a CTR of 38.7 percent but as of June 2019, CTR was 31.0 percent. This was partly due to most Google searches resulting in zero clicks.
These zero-click Google searches result from Google’s new ability to provide brief copies or quick answers from websites on SERPs without the need to click on the headline.
The second reason for the decline in CTR is poor search results headlines that do not attract clicks. So, being on the first Google SERP is not enough, making your Google SEO search results headlines more clickable is a good start.
So, whether you just want more traffic to read your blog posts, or you’re into the content marketing game, clickable headlines are all you need on Google SEO search pages to improve your CTR.
You may not know that the content and tone of your headlines can influence a person to read your content or visit your site. It makes a big difference between a potential customer or reader clicking your headlines or not clicking.
According to Copyblogger, eight out of every 10 people – whooping 80 percent – may see your headlines, but only two out of every 10 people – just 20 percent – will eventually click to read your content. This buttresses the need for writing clickable headlines that get clicked on Google SEO search result pages.
According to Melanie Duncan, for a headline to be clickable, it must be:
So whether your website or blog ranks first or fifth on Google SERP, improving your CTR through clickable headlines is key to your bottom line – without investing in a dedicated marketing campaign or link-building.
But how exactly can you write clickable headlines? No pressure!
I have crafted out this simple guide to teach you how to write clickable headlines that get clicked on Google SEO search results and drive traffic.
Combine my guide with effective SEO practices and boom! You get an increased CTR in Google SERP and large traffic to your site.
Here are a few things you can do:
Before I get started, I would like to briefly explain the search result anatomy. This is how a typical search result looks like on Google. This one belongs to the “Beardbrand online retailer.”
Every Google search result includes a title (headline), snippet, and site links (optional).
The title, which is your headline, is always the first thing that Google searchers/potential visitors will see. It describes your website, blog, or web page. You have full influence over how you want your headline to appear in Google SERPs.
The snippet is a brief description of the content on the blog or webpage. Snippet displays based on the specific keyword query searched for in Google. Nevertheless, you still have some level of influence over how your snippet appears.
Finally, site links are the most authoritative results on Google search results. Google determines what is shown here and when with its algorithm. Though you can encourage site links with good site structure and navigation.
Although from time to time, Google changes how it displays search results, these three elements described above are almost always included.
Now, let’s get back to the business of writing clickable headlines.
An essential part of content marketing or attracting traffic to your website/webpage is creating a headline that helps your audience to easily find your content. You must ensure that your headlines include the specific words that your audience is searching for.
In the case of the screenshot above, the keyword was “arthritis.”
Great clickable headlines must focus on the searchable keyword(s) – either short-tail or long-tail keyword(s).
This searchable keyword must also be included several times in your content body (especially in the first and last sentence), in your meta description, URL slug, subheadings, graphics, images, etc. This is a proper SEO practice.
Effectively incorporating keywords into your headlines and content doesn’t only allow your content to appear on top of Google search results but also makes your headlines more clickable as searchers will see that your headlines describe the content they are looking for.
Hint: Avoid using click-bait headlines as much as possible to get click-through. This is because click-bait headlines don't usually incorporate the specific keywords used in your content. I would recommend you use solid and honest keywords that reflect in your content.
Try Out the Best Headline Formats
Although there are lots of different headline formats you can write, there are some headline formats for your webpages and content that get more traction and improve clickability. Here is a list of the best headline formats to try out:
List Post Headlines
You've seen these types of headlines everywhere. And for good reason, they work. List post headlines arouse your audience's curiosity while providing ambiguity about the content itself.
领英推荐
According to OkDork, after infographics, list post headlines get the most clicks. And this is because list post headlines give your audience the chance to quickly skim through the subheadings to see if they are something they would be interested in reading further.
If possible to outline your blogposts as lists, I would suggest you adopt the list post headlines then to get the most clicks from your content.
"How To" Headlines
"How to" headlines are also common formats like list posts, and that’s because they also work well.
One of the main reasons why people search for information on Google is to know how to do or learn something. So if you step in and provide helpful “how to” content on your blog or web page, you will be gathering more clicks.
Brian Clark once said about "how to" headlines, “It's no secret that ‘how to’ articles ... are some of the most sought after, linked to, and bookmarked content online.”
Hint: “How to” headlines are undoubtedly the best choice if you write educational or instructional content that helps people to do something.
Question Headlines
These headlines are more focused on the needs of your audience and this implies that your audience would get answers to their questions if they click your headline to read your content.
These headlines are very helpful and relate to how people search for answers naturally. For instance, “I have a question and I need an answer from someone.” But instead of asking somebody, people turn to Google search to find answers.
So figuring out what your audience’s questions are will help you to use the relevant keywords in your question headlines to get the right traffic you're looking for.
Hint: you need to be careful when using a question headline. To keep readers interested, you would need to start with an introduction that teases the answer to the question.
Use any of the headlines discussed above and try as much as possible to avoid Generic Headlines to have a better opportunity to get more clicks and traffic.
Follow the Best and Appropriate Headlines Lengths
Did you know that combining the optimal headline character length with other Google SEO will lead to a higher click-through rate?
But in case you don’t know, headline analyser revealed that headlines with 55 characters get the most click-through rates. Though headlines that are at most 58 characters long are also acceptable.
Most people focus on the word counts of the headline, but this is not always right, the number of headline characters also matters.
You can use the headline analyser to see how your headline will appear in a typical Google search result. Although Google previously limited its title tag to a width of 512pixels, which is about 50 to 55 characters, it has recently updated the maximum length of title tags to 70 characters in search engine result pages.
Below is an example of a truncated headline.
When your headline is truncated, the complete headline content will not be viewable by searchers, who will definitely scroll past your title even if it leads to useful web content.
Also note that if you will be using the same headline as your e-mail subject lines, the average number of characters the email subject line can contain is 20. If you input more than 20 characters, the excess characters will be cut off.
More so, try as much as possible to include your keyword in the first 20 characters of your headline and if yours is presently not, make sure you revise your headline.
Amount of Headline Words
Headlines with six to seven words usually get the best click results. However, there are different opinions on the number of words to use in a headline. Nevertheless, the standard best practice allows the maximum amount of headline words to be 10.
Irrespective of the number of words in your headline, six words are very important in every headline, these are the first three words and the last three words.
Most Google searchers tend to read the first three words and the last three words of your headline. This is another big reason why your keyword should be within the first 20 characters of your headline.
Write Better Headlines to Get Better Click On Google SEO SERPS
If you still wonder how powerful clickable headlines are, read this case study of how adopting simple clickable headlines improved Wilson HTM’s conversions by about 52.8 percent.
Wilson HTM, an investment company, sought ways to promote one of their investment funds. The company contacted a digital marketing agency, launched a Google Ad campaign, and designed a supposed highly converting landing page all in a bid to drive traffic.
Though all these efforts converted well, Wilson HTM wanted to further increase its conversion rate to offset costs. After a few brainstorming moments, Wilson HTM came up with the “clickable headlines” idea.
The company reviewed its current headline and made it more clickable. Guess what? The new headline outperformed the former headline by about 52.8 percent at a 97 percent confidence interval.
Just like Wilson HTM did, review your content headlines today, make them more clickable and see how your CTR and traffic to your content will increase.
If you want to know if your current headlines are better and clickable or need some tweaking, give this headline analyser a shot. Anything below 70 means your headlines need some touches.
Keep your headline short and well-structured with your keywords within the first 20 characters. This will improve your CTR, as well as drive more traffic to your site. It’s a win-win.
If you need help with writing clickable headlines that attracts people to your website, don't hesitate to contact me today. I'm always at your service.