A Step-by-Step Guide

You know how when you're scrolling through your social media feed or browsing a website, you stop and click on something that grabs your attention? That's the magic of a good headline or hook. It's like the front door to your content, and if it's not inviting, people won't step inside.

According to famed advertising executive David Ogilvy “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

You need to think of your headline as that crucial first impression. It's what decides whether someone will dive into your content or keep scrolling. So, spending some extra thought on your headline is just too important to bypass.

There are wordsmiths and genius copywriters out there that craft killer headlines and hooks. The best of them have started incorporating these tools into their writing practice, and the good news is that they’re accessible to the rest of us too.

Unfortunately with AI and some online tools, there’s so much out there, it can feel overwhelming knowing where to start and what to incorporate. You can’t do it all, and most of us have the time to spend a week figuring it out.

So I’m going to try to break it down for you. With AI and online tools, it's like having a creative assistant at your fingertips. They can help you generate ideas, banish writer's block, and make your content pop. So let’s dive in!

The Art of Crafting a Good Hook or Headline

A good hook or headline should grab your reader's attention, spark curiosity, and make them want to keep reading. It's your content's first impression, and it needs to be memorable.

The best hooks and headlines often leave readers intrigued and wanting to know more. They might hint at a problem and promise a solution. We'll dive into these strategies, so you can put them to work for your content.

In the world of copywriting, the art of crafting compelling headlines revolves around a simple yet powerful trio: creating curiosity, addressing a problem, and/or providing a solution. These three elements, either by themselves or combined, are the cornerstone of effective hooks that captivate your audience, making them pause, read further, and engage with your content.

First and foremost, creating curiosity is like leaving breadcrumbs that lead your readers deeper into your content. A headline that piques curiosity triggers a psychological response, compelling readers to satisfy their curiosity by diving into your article or blog post. It leaves them wanting to know more, which can be particularly powerful when you're revealing a surprising fact, teasing a secret, or offering an intriguing perspective. In a world of endless distractions, curiosity acts as your secret weapon to keep readers glued to your content.

Addressing a problem strikes a chord with your audience's pain points. People are naturally drawn to content that acknowledges and empathizes with their challenges. When your headline signals that you understand the reader's problem, it instantly establishes a connection. It tells them, "I get it, and I can help." This emotional resonance can be incredibly persuasive and encourages readers to explore your content in search of solutions to their problems.

Providing a solution in your headline not only reassures readers but also offers them a clear benefit. It tells them that your content isn't just about identifying problems; it's about delivering answers and guidance. Afterall, for most of us, our businesses only exist because people have problems and we have solutions to them. So why not highlight this upfront? This promise of a solution motivates readers who are actively seeking answers to click and engage. It's an invitation to learn, improve, or take action, making your content a valuable resource in their eyes.

Now your headline doesn’t have to cover all three, but it’s a good jumping-off point to start from. Maybe you pique their curiosity and state a problem and then offer the solution further down on the page. The importance of creating curiosity, addressing a problem, and/or providing a solution as hooks for your headlines cannot be overstated. These strategies tap into the fundamental needs and desires of your audience, making your copywriting not only engaging but also highly effective in driving engagement, conversions, and reader satisfaction. Whether you're crafting headlines for blog posts, advertisements, or any other form of content, remember that these techniques are your allies in the quest to capture and retain your readers' attention.

Tips for Effective Headline and Hook Writing

Creating attention-grabbing headlines and hooks is essential for capturing your audience's interest and encouraging them to read your content. Here are some practical tips and tricks to help you craft compelling headlines and hooks:

Understand Your Audience: Before you start writing, have a clear understanding of your target audience. What are their interests, pain points, and preferences? Tailor your headlines to resonate with their needs and desires.
Use Strong Action Words: Incorporate powerful action verbs that evoke emotions and prompt readers to take action. Words like "discover," "transform," "master," and "uncover" can add vigor to your headlines.
Keep it Concise: Brevity is key in headlines. Aim for clarity and simplicity. A concise headline is easier to digest and more likely to grab attention amid the noise of online content.
Pose Questions: Asking a relevant question in your headline can spark curiosity. Questions directly engage readers and encourage them to seek answers within your content.
Highlight Benefits: Clearly convey the benefits readers will gain from your content. Whether it's solving a problem, learning a skill, or gaining insights, emphasize how your content will improve their lives.
Use Numbers: Numerical headlines, such as "10 Tips for..." or "5 Ways to...," are highly effective. They offer a clear structure and indicate that your content provides a list of actionable advice.
Invoke Emotion: Appeal to readers' emotions by using words that trigger feelings like excitement, fear, joy, or curiosity. Emotional resonance can make your headlines more memorable.

Remember that headline writing is both an art and a science. It may take some experimentation to find the formula that works best for your audience and content. By applying these practical tips and tricks, you'll be well-equipped to create attention-grabbing headlines and hooks that draw readers into your content.

SEO-friendly headlines

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is like the compass that helps your website or content be found on the internet. It's about making your online stuff more friendly to search engines like Google so that when people search for something related to your content, they can easily discover it. It's crucial because it ensures that your website or content shows up higher in search results, increasing the chances of people finding and visiting your site.

Your headlines need to not only grab readers but also attract search engines. It’s important to strike a balance between creativity and SEO; an engaging hook and an effective one. But it is possible, and the good news is there are tools that can make this massively easier to achieve.

First, you need to choose an SEO keyword phrase to use for your post. The best way to start is to think about what someone might Google if they were looking for the information you’re writing about. People often Google in normal, casual language. For example, if I wanted to know how to make ice cream from scratch, I might Google, “What do I need to make homemade icecream”. If you were writing a blog post on “The Ultimate Guide to Making Ice Cream at Home”, this could be exactly the information I need. So for this post, some good SEO search terms might be:

· Make homemade ice cream

· Making ice cream at home

· How to make ice cream

You can take these ideas and input them into an SEO Keyword Researcher like Ubersuggest (that’s what I use!). It has some really great SEO tools and you can sign up for a 7 day free trial to test it out. Basically what you can expect is you enter the terms you came up with into their Keyword Ideas tab. You can add up to 3 phrases at a time and you can try it over and over so you can experiment on what keywords work best.

Enter your keyword ideas and see how they rate for SEO

What’s so cool about this tool is that you start with the three phrases you came up with and it’ll tell you what the volume of this search is (how many people are searching this phrase in a month), CPC (cost per click) & PD (paid difficulty) which are good if you’re paying for search ads, and the SD (search difficulty). The two numbers I pay attention to are the Volume and Search Difficulty. You want to get a decent volume with the lowest possible search difficulty.

So looking at my search query, I can see that the SEO terms I choose are highly searched for, the the search difficulty of all of them are quite high (meaning it’ll be harder to rank #1 or even the first page for these search terms.

Ubersuggest Keyword Idea Suggestions — See Keyword Idea suggestions and search for better terms to use.

However, if you drop down to the Keyword Ideas, you’ll see that “how to make ice cream homemade” has a very high search volume and a very low search difficulty. There is also one called “recipe homemade ice cream vanilla” that could be great. Basically you choose whatever fits your post the best and use this keyword to optimize your blog post for search.

So either of these would be excellent search terms to choose for our blog post on making homemade ice cream. This is the epitome of working smarter, not harder. We can do the same work but have much more effective results with this one quick search.

SEO-friendly headlines are your ticket to higher rankings. So now that we’ve chosen our keyword phrase, let’s work on the headline.

How to Use Chat GPT for Quality Headlines

I have a whole post on how to write good headlines yourself, but for the purpose of this post, we’re gonna take a shortcut and ask ChatGPT to do some of the heavy lifting for us. I like it because it helps get me out of my writer’s block, and gives me new ideas and directions to consider that I may not have thought of myself.

ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it appreciates a little guidance. We'll show you how to give it the right prompts for stellar results. I like to create a business bio that I can copy and paste into my AI query with general information for the AI to Provide prompts and tips for inputting into Chat GPT to get high-quality headlines.

I have a longer post on building your business bio here, but as a quick refresher, here’s what you’re looking for:

What you do: ex: Create easy recipes
Target Audience: Families who cook together
Goal for the audience: Give them an easy-to-follow Ice cream recipe
Tone of voice: Fun, casual, positive and family-oriented

There is more you can put in there but this is a good start for your bio.

So you are going to use a query like this:

Write 10 engaging headlines for how to make homemade ice cream for this business:

What you do: ex: Create easy recipes

Target Audience: Families who cook together

Goal for the audience: Give them an easy-to-follow Ice cream recipe

Tone of voice: Fun, casual, positive and family oriented

Title should include SEO search term: how to make ice cream homemade

That query above created the following posts:

"Scoop Up the Fun: How to Make Ice Cream Homemade with Your Family"
"Churn Up Smiles: Homemade Ice Cream Recipes for Family Time"
"Sundae Funday: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Make Ice Cream Homemade"
"Whisk, Freeze, Enjoy: Easy Homemade Ice Cream for Family Dessert Night"
"Ice Cream Adventures: Creating Delicious Memories at Home"
"Cool Creations: Learn How to Make Ice Cream Homemade, Together!"
"Chill Out with DIY Ice Cream: Family-Friendly Recipes and Tips"
"Scoop-tacular Fun: Making Homemade Ice Cream with Your Loved Ones"
"From Your Kitchen to Their Hearts: Homemade Ice Cream Delights"
"Sweet Summer Treats: How to Make Ice Cream Homemade with the Family"

This is a great start. Now let’s see how we can improve on it!

Using Headline Studio by CoSchedule

Meet your second best friend, Headline Studio. What we’re going to do, is take the headlines we wrote above and find the best ones and improve on them using this online tool. While they do have a paid version, their free version works great for most people. I'll show you how it can make your headlines shine using our ice cream example. This program assesses factors like word balance, length, and emotional impact, helping you fine-tune your headlines to perfection. With Headline Studio, you can experiment with different variations, find the right mix of keywords, and ensure your headlines resonate with your audience.

CoSchedule's Headline Studio employs a scoring system to evaluate the effectiveness of your headlines. It provides two key scores: the Headline Score and the SEO Score. Here's what you should look for to achieve a good score:

Headline Score: This score assesses the overall quality and impact of your headline. Aim for a high Headline Score, ideally in the 70s or higher.
SEO Score: This score evaluates your headline's optimization for search engines.

By the way, they also have a tab called Headline AI that can help you come up with solutions as well.

HeadlineStudio for optimizing and improving headline engagement.

To achieve a good overall score, strike a balance between creating an engaging, emotionally resonant headline (Headline Score) and optimizing it for search engines (SEO Score). Remember that these scores are guidelines, and sometimes, the best headline for your audience may not achieve a perfect score but still perform exceptionally well. It's essential to consider your specific content and audience while using these scores as a helpful tool for headline improvement.

I chose a couple of my favorite headlines from our ChatGPT list above and entered them into the headline analyzer. landed on this headline:

Scoop Up the Fun: How to Make Ice Cream Homemade with Your Family

It has a high headline score and a very high SEO score to this headline feels like a winner to me. Now I know that it’s worded a little differently than we would often write, but it’s worded in a way that people tend to search. So based on this, we’re keeping the wording in hopes that it’ll score huge with SEO and draw new viewers to our site.

In Summary

In crafting compelling headlines and hooks, we've explored the art of making that crucial first impression on your readers. We've uncovered that a good hook should do more than just capture attention; it should ignite curiosity, address problems, or offer solutions. These three elements, curiosity, problem-solving, and solution-providing, form the cornerstone of effective hooks, driving engagement, conversions, and reader satisfaction.

We've also delved into practical tips for crafting irresistible headlines, we've explored the delicate balance between creativity and SEO in headlines, we’ve harnessed the power of technology, turning to ChatGPT for assistance in generating engaging headlines and finally we've introduced you to Headline Studio by CoSchedule, a valuable ally in headline refinement. I hope these tools will help unlock your writer’s block and make the journey of creating content for your website less overwhelming and more exciting. We all have valuable things to say, but it’s nice to know you can use your brain to help unlock the technology available to us, to give it your own unique spin.

So, as you embark on your content creation journey, remember that your headlines are your first handshake with your readers. Make them memorable, make them engaging, and make them work for you.