How to ruin your headline in 4 steps

We would like to start with an apology.

Earlier this month we told you exactly what to do to increase your traffic by 500% with your headline.

This is great. But humans being human, sometimes we only learn by making mistakes.

You might only stop speeding when you get caught, you only learn to ride a bike when you fall off, and so on.

So we’d like to take this chance to give you a cheat guide of exactly what NOT to do when writing a headline.

Here are the mistakes that you should categorically avoid.

1. Don’t reveal the secret.

The only reason you click on an article is because it contains some information you want to find out.

If the article is well written, it should tell you all the benefits of knowing this information, how your life will be dramatically improved when you find it out, and how much success you will see when you implement the idea.

Just when your reader can’t take it anymore, you reveal the secret.

We’ve spoken before about how your article should be like a greasy slide, flowing seamlessly from one section to the next.

Writing this way has several benefits:

• Readers will come back wanting more.

• More website clicks

• Better conversions on other sections of your website

• People can see you know what you’re talking about

The minute you put the secret in your headline, you lose all of these benefits.

People don’t even need to click on your article to know the answer. All of your hard work goes to waste.

You need to build anticipation. There’s no harm in making your reader wait. 

As long as your writing is good enough to keep them waiting, then you’ll build a dopamine response in their brain. Keep this up and you’ll have your audience hooked like they’re scrolling on TikTok.

1. Waffle

Long-time readers will know this is one of our pet peeves.

Imagine the headline for this article was this:

“Mistakes that you should avoid if you want people to read your article and increase your retention rate”

Seriously, who would read that?

Headlines need to be direct and to the point. You should have as few words as humanly possible. 

Waffling leads to boredom, boredom leads to no clicks.

Rambling on also tends to lead to a vague headline.

If your readers don’t know what the article is about, I can guarantee you they won’t read it.

Keep it concise, keep it specific.

1. Using jargon

One of my first memories of working for a big company is how people speak in acronyms.

KPI, SEO, EOD, OOO.

Talk about the quickest way to lose your audience.

Avoid these terms at all costs. Even if you absolutely have to use them, then explain what they mean before anything else.

It might be blatantly obvious, but if your reader wastes a second trying to figure out what your jargon means, they’ll disappear in a cloud of dust.

We’re speaking to humans here, not robots. 

So use personal language.

How I did X, why you should do Y.

Your headline is the opening sentence of a conversation between friends. Make it sound that way.

1. Over-promising and under-delivering

This is a crash course on how to sound like a slimy snake oil salesman.

If your headline opens with the claim of “an ultimate guide to mastering your SEO”, but then you deliver a 250-word article, guess what your customers will do.

Poof. Gone forever.

Throwing big numbers around and promising the world will not bring customers in.

People read that kind of rubbish every day in their junk mail.

Be genuine in your claims, and back it up in your article. 

Remember - no one likes a liar.

We hope we made up for the serious error we mentioned in our introduction.

Put our tips in place, and hopefully, your results will go some way to granting us forgiveness.

Speak soon,

Jamie 

P.S. Do you need help writing an amazing headline? Get in touch with us at https://www.jumpstartmarketingsolutions.com/ and we’ll be in touch to see how we can help.