How to Write SEO-Friendly Headlines That Attract Clicks and Shares

SEO-friendly headlines attract clicks and shares because they help your content to stand out in search results and appeal to your target audience.

Using keywords, modifiers, numbers, and lists, you can create headlines that match the most common relevant search queries and communicate the value of your content.

This cascades into benefits for your content marketing strategy by improving your search rankings, increasing your website traffic, and ultimately driving more conversions. So, how do you achieve this?

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Your audience is composed of the people who will be searching for and reading your content. How do you craft the perfect SEO-friendly headlines without understanding them?

Knowing their needs, preferences, and pain points, you can tailor your headlines to address and resonate with them. Assessing your audience’s behavior also helps you use the language and tone with which they are familiar and will appreciate.

Thus, you can avoid words that might confuse or offend them. This way, you attract their attention and persuade them to click on your content. Do the following to research your target audience thoroughly:

• Define your ideal audience profile. Try to answer the question: who can benefit the most from the content I put out?
• Conduct surveys and collect feedback directly from your audience base. Ask questions about their motivations, preferences, expectations, and objections.
• Analyze their online behavior, especially on social media. How do people react to content you have put out previously? Which headline constructions have been particularly successful?
• If you run an e-commerce business, creating a buyer persona of the ideal customer would be more helpful based on data you have collected from and about your target audience.

2. Include Keywords

Using the right keywords in headlines help both search engines and users understand what your content is about and how it matches their queries. Keywords can help you rank higher for relevant searches.

Consider the following example:

• Good: How to Write SEO-Friendly Headlines that Attract Clicks and Shares

• Bad: How to Write Amazing Headlines for your Website

The first one is an example of a good headline construction because it uses a specific keyword phrase (SEO-Friendly Headlines) that aligns with the search query rather than the vague and generic keyword (Amazing Headlines), which would most likely yield a lower ranking.

Generating interesting keyword ideas has become easy with the Eye10 Keyword Planner. You even get to see each keyword’s search volume to determine which is the best for your content.

3. Demonstrate the Benefit

Users go to Google because they are looking for answers to specific questions. From the headline, you should aim to convince users that you have the answer they want.

This means using the headline to demonstrate the specific benefit that your content brings to them. When you assess the headline of this article, you will notice the addition of “attract clicks and shares” as the explicit value of the article.

And that’s probably what triggered you to click the link, and now you are here. Basically, from the example, it is not enough that you can teach readers how to write SEO-friendly headlines; you must be able to show the value you offer to convince them to read.

After doing this, ensure that the headline does not just appear in the article but is also listed correctly as the title tag or H1 tag in the HTML code that the search engine crawls. Use the Eye10 On-Page SEO tool to ascertain this.

4. Use Catchy Words and Emotional Triggers

Certain words do better at capturing the attention and interest of readers. These words appeal to a range of different emotions that can influence decision-making. Such emotions include curiosity, fear, intrigue, excitement, anger, etc.

Here are some examples of catchy words and emotional triggers you could use:

• Power words convey a strong message or action, including words such as ‘boost,’ ‘skyrocket,’ ‘crush,’ ‘dominate, ‘ etc. Power words make your headlines more persuasive and impactful.
• Interrogative words: invite your readers to learn something new and spark their curiosity by using words such as “how,” “why,” “what,” and so on.
• Negative words: indeed, you don’t want to fuel negativity. However, when crafting headlines, negative words could trigger urgency in your readers. Such words include “avoid,” “stop,” “never,” etc.

5. Pay Attention to the Length

Another aspect you should pay attention to is the length of your headlines because it can affect your SEO performance and user experience. There are two reasons why.

Search engines have a limit on how many characters they can display in their results. If your headline is too long, it will get cut off and might lose its force of persuasion.

It is best to keep your headline between 50-60 characters, often no more than eight words. Sometimes, you might need extra characters and words; in that case, ensure the headline’s purpose is clear from the first few words.

Consider the headline of this article, which has eleven words. Even if you cut off the last three words, you still get “How to Write SEO-Friendly Headlines that Attract,” which is enough to inspire desired action.

On the other hand, many people prefer to read concise headlines that present the topic in a very clear format, not one with so many words that by the time they are done reading, they won’t be able to tell what the article is about.

Determine the subject of the article and state that clearly in the headline. Here are some tips for shortening your headlines:

• Remove filler words that don’t add any value or meaning, such as “the,” “a,” “an,” “of,” etc.
• Use abbreviations or acronyms for common terms or phrases that your audience is familiar with, such as “SEO” for “search engine optimization” or “DIY” for “do it yourself.”
• Use symbols or numbers instead of spelling out words, such as “$” for “dollar” or “10” for “ten.”

Conclusion

Writing SEO-friendly headlines is an art that requires a combination of creativity and technical skills. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can create headlines that are optimized for search engines and compelling and shareable.

And, of course, you will always get the assistance you need using the Eye10 Keyword Planner, which provides you with interesting keywords that you can use to generate headlines. With other SEO tools from Eye10, such as Competitor Research, On-Page SEO, and Industry Checker, your SEO strategy will take a new turn once you sign up.