How to Create Powerful Headlines that Attract & Convert Customers

It’s the first part of your website that your customer will see: the headline. Writing powerful and captivating headlines can increase your conversion rate by upwards of 40%. But what makes a good headline? How do you know what messaging resonates with your customers? In this article, we’ll walk you through a process of creating great headlines that captivate & engage your customers. 

Step #1: Use real numbers & data in your headlines

Recent studies have shown that webpages with numbers and data in the headlines garner more than 7% more social shares than those without. Why is that the case? Numbers convey legitimacy and authority; our brains tend to believe and trust  statements that include data than those without. 

So if your webpage was about increasing conversion rates, instead of writing this:

“Start increasing your conversion rate today!”

You should write something like this:

“Start increasing your conversion rate by 30% today!”

Step #2: Give your readers a reason why they should purchase. 

Rationale – it’s the reason why someone does what they do. Ask yourself, when a reader sees the headline to my page are they enticed to read it? What am I offering them?

To help you, here’s a list of rationale’s great web pages use to offer their readers a reason to click and read the their page:

1. Tips
2. Reasons
3. Lessons
4. Tricks
5. Ideas
6. Facts
7. Secrets
8. Strategies

Here are some examples to help you write a headline which offers a good reason:

1. 7 tips on writing great headlines for small businesses
2. 5 lessons I learned as an eCommerce store owner
3. 3 secrets on creating a great landing page for retail businesses

Step #3: Captivate your audience

Did you know that the average attention span for a human being is roughly 8 seconds? If a person doesn’t feel connected or interested with the content they are viewing within 8 seconds, they are most likely to leave and go elsewhere. 

So what can you do to captivate them during those 8 seconds?

1. Ensure your headline is specific

Headlines that convey a specific objective are more likely to attract users than those without. Don’t confuse your readers, try to avoid vagueness and get straight to the point. 

With an abundance of content available for readers today, if a headline doesn’t state a specific need, then users won’t waste time clicking on it, instead they’ll gravitate to the page that meets their needs the most. 

2. Create a sense of urgency

When your page shows up on a Google search result, there’s dozens of other links competing for your readers. Beyond offering a need-specific headline, ensure you add a sense of urgency to the headline to stand out from the crowd. Urgency is conveyed as the sense of losing out if a reader doesn’t click on the link to your page. Here are some examples of urgency in a headline:

8 CRO mistakes that hurt small businesses. How many are you making?

5 steps I took to creating a successful eCommerce store (And how you can do it in only 4 steps)

Step #4 - Make your headline SHINE

There’s a simple formula great marketers use to creating powerful headlines, just remember SHINE

S - Specific

H - Helpful

I - Immediacy

N - Newsworthiness

E - Entertaining 

If including the above 5 elements in one headline seems daunting, always remember that great headlines include these 3 elements:

1. A clear problem
2. A valuable solution
3. Promise to apply solution to bring benefits

Here are some examples:

How to increase revenue without adding new products

“How to increase” is your solution.

“Revenue” is your problem

“Without adding new products” is your promise. 

Conclusion

Writing powerful headlines on your pages can help increase your page’s traffic and entice your readers to purchase your product. Writing multiple headlines for a single page enables you to test different messaging to ensure you’re hitting the key points your customer craves. 

With AutoOptimize, you can easily create multiple headlines and allow our tool to handle all the testing. We’ll automatically show your new headlines to customers as they arrive on your page and we’ll share with you which headline was the most effective. 

Start testing new headlines today with AutoOptimize, sign up for free now.