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It turns out longer is better—at least when it comes to writing headlines for branded content. Branded content technology provider Polar analyzed a bunch of data provided by premium publishers, such as Oath and Gannett, to see how variation in headlines affected key performance indicators (KPIs). It found that branded content headlines between 90 and 99 characters achieved a clickthrough rate (CTR) of 0.43%, higher than headlines with fewer characters. The “more is better” theory also held true for the number of words included in a headline. Polar reported that headlines with 16 words garnered a CTR of 0.33%. By comparison, pithy headlines of just four words recorded an average CTR of less than half that, at just 0.14%. Some other tips Polar gleaned from its work? Numbers and special characters also resulted in a bump in CTRs. So feel free to figure out how to squeeze an ampersand in there....
“If you use a poor headline, it does not matter how hard you labor over your copy because your copy will not be read.” John Caples A good headline is one that resonates with your audience not one that resonates with someone else’s audience. This is why copying a viral headline format that worked on BuzzFeed or Facebook is a bad idea, particularly if you write for a B2B audience. Our latest research reveals the headlines that resonate with B2B audiences including: The top phrases that start B2B headlines The most engaging phrases in B2B headlines The most shared numbers in business headlines The top words and topics that resonate with B2B audiences The optimum length of B2B headlines Key lessons for business content writers The research is based on an analysis of 10 million articles shared on LinkedIn. See our methodology note at the end of this post.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of headlines. A good headline can entice and engage your audience to click, to read, and to share your content. In many cases headlines are the thing that is shared rather than the article. So you knew that. But do you know what makes an engaging headline?
To help answer this question we analyzed 100 million article headlines. We have set out below our findings from the research including the:Cox
- Headline phrases that drive most engagement on Facebook
- Worst performing headline phrases on Facebook
- Most effective phrases that start or end headlines
- Optimum number of words and characters to use in a headline
- Most impactful numbers to use in headlines
- Most engaging Twitter headline phrases
- Differences between B2C and B2B headlines.
While there is no magic formula for creating a viral or popular headline, there are many lessons we can learn to improve our content engagement. We shared our findings with a number of content experts to reflect on the implications of the research for writers. We have included their expert thoughts and advice at the end of this post. We have also included a section on how you can analyze headlines yourself using BuzzSumo.
If you’re like me and writing up to eight posts per week while juggling multiple businesses, it can be seriously draining. So out of pure necessity, I’ve experimented with a plethora of different tools to aid me in the process of generating new content ideas. Some have been home runs and some have been strikeouts. But there are seven in particular I really like and want to share with you....
The most direct way is to catch readers’ eyes is with a provocative headline. We’ve looked at headlines before, looking at how publishers can optimize theirs for social and the best practices for headlines on Facebook.
Knowing the headlines that work gives your content the best possible start to attracting attention on social.
Armed with years of social media metrics, we turned to NewsWhip Analytics to analyze how headlines of ten top publishers has changed in just the past two years. Let’s take a look....
Below the surface, not in the 20th-century French existentialist sense, but to a much more simple understanding of depth that can actually start to make things happen for your content marketing strategy … whatever it is you’re trying to do online. As Mr. Sartre once said, “Words are loaded pistols.” I happen to believe that is a true statement. But today, without a largely invisible foundation that amplifies your words, they may as well be as impotent as an unloaded .38 Special. Here are three simple “subterranean” lessons I’ve learned (and imperfectly used) over the years, that you’ll find might make all the difference in the visible strategy you employ out there in the world....
You’re busy, so I’ll keep this quick. Following are the simplest tips I can give you to easily — and forever — improve the quality of your writing.
Lake Superior State University on New Year's Eve released its its 42nd annual "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness." The university collects nominations all year round on this Facebook pageand releases the word to honor the new year. The word cloud is from the university, showing some of the previously banned words. Previous lists and more information about the project may be found here. The 2017 list and the reasons given by the university: You, Sir: Hails from a more civilized era when duels were the likely outcome of disagreements. Today, we suffer on-line trolls and Internet shaming. Focus: Good word, but overused when concentrate or look at would work fine. See 1983's banishment of, We Must Focus Our Attention. Bête Noire: After consulting a listing of synonyms, we gather this to be a bugbear, pet peeve, bug-boo, pain, or pest to our nominators....
Words are hard. Whether you're a published author or just getting started with blogging, it's not always easy to string words together in a way that makes sense, sounds good, and makes the reader feel something. But every marketer should be able to write -- and, more importantly, every marketer can write. It's just a matter of finding the writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback (and listening to it), and practicing. Luckily, there are a slew of great tools you can use to help improve your writing. Check out the list below, and feel free to add the most helpful ones you use in the comment section....
People often assume that trade blogs are dry and uninteresting by their very nature. That isn’t—and shouldn’t be—the case.
After all, who will keep coming back to your blog if they’re bored to tears whenever they visit?
Luckily, there are plenty of easy ways to spice things up.
Here are 25 useful tips to turn your B2B blog into something that delivers the returns you deserve. It’s never too late to make your B2B blog an effective part of your online marketing strategy.
In fact, I’m bursting with ideas for making industry blogs more dynamic and engaging. Here are my 25 best tips....
At Contently, we’ve taken the principles of the Five Factor Model to construct our own tone analyzer that will make pairing writers and brands more data driven. Because we’re analyzing content, rather than actual people, we’ve given each traditional trait a new, more editorially friendly name. How does it work? The analyzer scrapes a website for as much text as possible, then assigns this aggregated content with a numeric “score” for each of the Big Five personality traits. The process is the same for analyzing a writer’s body of work. Scores range from zero to one. By assessing the trait scores, we can detect the character of the publication or writer, and match the two accordingly....
If you expect to convert more of your audience into actual customers, you need to crack the code.
You need to switch up your game plan.
In my early days of writing, I didn’t realize this. I had an eye for visual appeal, but I was unsure of how this applied to blogging. There I was, blogging away every day without realizing how people were viewing my articles.
Now, I have a better idea of how people interact with written content online.
What you’re viewing right now is a result of my research and testing.
It’s about scannable content....
My father-in-law recently offered to take me to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, but apart from that, I know next to nothing about the world’s largest country.
As such, you might be wondering why I’m spending so much time on Russian dolls. It’s a fair question, but truth be told, there’s a simple reason for it – content pillars.
Still scratching your head? That’s what I thought.
Trust me – the similarities between Russian dolls and content pillars are easily identifiable once you know what a content pillar is....
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I was on Twitter the other day when something leaped out of the torrent at me. “Create unique article on any topic in just a click,” the tweet said. Could this be for real? Could a robot do a better job than I — a professional freelance writer — could? Considering that writers and content creators like me are doomed if so, I figured I better check it out. TRYING OUT THE WORD-O-MATIC So I clicked and landed here , a somewhat dodgy looking page that said Unique Article Creator “is the best article generator tool to generate SEO friendly unique articles from your keyword.” The unidentified people behind the site say the tool finds fresh content and then rewrites it to be unique and have stronger search engine optimization (SEO)....
Last summer, we looked at the characteristics of successful headlines on Facebook, parsing the numbers in the NewsWhip database to pick commonalities in the titles of stories that attracted a lot of engagement on the platform. Our findings at the time pointed to great headlines: – Being conversational and descriptive, – Speaking to a personal experience – Being vivid and interesting, – Not tricking or misleading the readers. All of these principles remain the same, especially the last factor, which is now generally de rigueur for any sites looking to seriously develop an engaged and loyal readership through social media. Then at the start of this year, we took another look at headlines that were seeing engagement to see if there were any other obvious trends. Now we’ve identified a few new factors of note for successful headlines on social media, based on the data we’ve seen in NewsWhip Analytics. As well as the advice we’ve already dispensed around headline etiquette on this blog, here are three more factors to consider when looking to pitch the most effective story description to social readers....
It's one thing to write great content, but it's another thing to get it read and ranked -- which is where nailing the title comes in. Titles are what sell the content. They represent it in search engines, in email, and on social media. It's no surprise, then, that some of the most common questions we get concern crafting titles. How long should my headline be? What words should I use? What words should I avoid? Should I optimize it for search, or for social? Or both? Luckily, we've come up with a simple formula for writing catchy headlines and blog titles that you can reference from here on out. So let's just dive right in, shall we?...
You have greatness in you. Cultivating it often takes role models, mentors, and loads of hard work. This fun quiz will help you find out which famous world leader you most resemble in your writing and may help you find an inspiring role model.
Whether you’re trying to become the next top blogger, or just working in an office, writing is a vital key to success (even if it doesn’t seem like it). New research by Harvard has found that writing is one of the most overlooked, yet vital skills in business. Harnessing the power of good writing can accomplish everything from boosting your productivity to improving your leadership (not to mention it will help you create awesome stories). Luckily, there are some ways to easily improve. Stephen King, one of the world’s most successful authors, isn’t shy about sharing the tricks and tools that helped him sell over 350 million books....
Content chunking is quite similar – it is the process of breaking down content into smaller, bite-sized bits of easily digestible information that are easy to comprehend, learn, and commit to memory.
Epic copywriting is an integral part of driving traffic and making conversions. Smashing Magazine even states that “it’s not how can you become a world-class copywriter in a short period of time if you have only minimal experience? It took me 10 years to improve, figuring out these techniques. By practicing them, you’ll be able to improve a lot faster....
Online, your product is unbundled. You get 10 words. Or 8. Or maybe 13, like I used above, to market your work. Digital success is like selling a newspaper story by story rather than day by day or week by week. And in selling that day’s paper, by subscription or newsstand, there’s just less urgency to make the headline awesome on that 150-word story buried at the bottom of page 11. Sections and geographic centers all are comfortable assumptions you can’t make in digital headlines. You must have a certain sense of desperation in writing web headlines, like those eight words are the difference between that column’s or blog’s life or death. Mostly, because it is. You aren’t owed readership. Your headline helps earn it — along with a handful of other factors like author and brand.
So any strategy involving growing and sustaining digital audience must incorporate excellence in headline writing. Must.
A few points to clarify here as we begin. I’ll be discussing writing for readers here, not for search engine optimization. That will be a consideration at times, but mostly we’re talking about people creating headlines for people....
If you've decided that you want to start an email newsletter, or you want to revamp one that's not performing well, keep on reading. We've compiled some of our absolute favorite email newsletters to inspire you to make the best email newsletter for your company possible.
Each newsletter on this list is fabulous for different reasons. Some have exceptional design, some have exceptional copy, some have exceptional calls-to-action ... but all are exceptional at solving for their subscribers' needs. Check 'em out....
Engineers and other technical experts take to the web to educate themselves on their options now more than ever before.
When sifting through online content, engineers and other experts in their fields want facts, not a hard sell. They’re conducting serious research.
In fact, according to a study by CEB in partnership with Google, 57 percent of the B2B purchasing process has been completed by the time someone contacts a salesperson.
So, as content marketers, we need to give them the information they need to make smart purchasing decisions. But engineers have already studied for years to accrue their subject matter expertise. Can marketers actually talk intelligently to them online?...
Writing isn’t a talent—it’s a skill. A skill you can develop, refine, and improve.
Becoming a great copywriter isn’t easy, but if you consistently work on your writing, your writing will get better and better.
Here are 33 (count them!) writing tweaks that will propel you to copywriting mastery....
It’s on the tip of your brain. An idea. You think you’re onto something. You’ve figured something out that nobody else realizes. What should you do next? Write an idea treatment. I’ll explain how.
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A paradox? More characters and more words mean more clicks.