How do you write the perfect headline?
Every copywriting guru has a different take on this.
And seriously, there are a million and one ways to approach this topic.
Personally, I like to think of it as adding salt and pepper to your food.
Here’s what I mean:
You want to start with a base benefit, topic, or something that grabs your readers attention.
Some examples of this might include…
“Lose weight”
“Save money”
“Look younger”
Or even something like…
“Donald Trump”
Or…
“Climate change”
(Just note that these are BAD examples. They’re too simple. When doing this you want to be as ultra-specific as possible and zero in on something that the reader is extremely interested in.)
This topic or benefit forms the base of your headline.
I call this the “salt” and it’s the thing that grabs or hooks your readers attention.
In this post our salt is the phrase “writing headlines.”
If you’re still reading this, it’s because you want to learn how to do that.
Now, everything else which surrounds the salt is what I call the “pepper.”
These are basically words which add to the flavor of your headline.
A lot of the time this pepper includes your standard headline formats.
I’m talking about things like…
“Why…”
“What…”
“How to…”
“10 ways to…”
The pepper can also include other words which enhance the flavor.
Things like:
“Weird”
“Strange”
“Unusual”
“Groundbreaking”
You’ll also want to add in curiosity generating phrases like:
“What you don’t know about xyz could kill you.”
“Why most people never discover the truth about xyz before it’s too late.”
“10 reasons why your xyz isn’t working.”
And so on and so on.
(In this post our pepper is “The salt and pepper technique…”)
When we mix it all up we get:
“The salt and pepper technique for writing headlines”
Believe it or not it’s really that simple.
Start with your salt.
Find a benefit or topic that excites your audience and grabs their attention.
Next, add in your pepper.
Use weird, colorful, or strange words and surround them with curiosity generating phrases.
With this simple technique you can write headlines quickly.
Not only that, you can use it to write email subject lines, sales letter headlines, article titles, YouTube titles…
…or anything really.
Until we meet again,
Alastair Walton