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Headlines are the single most critical element driving readership to your website.

Anyone with even the most rudimentary direct or direct response marketing knowledge should recognize the headline of this article. It should be instantly familiar. If it seems “vaguely familiar,” or it doesn’t strike any chord at all, and you’re really serious about selling goods and services on the internet, or driving traffic to your website, read on.

In short, you need to know:

1. the wording of the original title,
2. who wrote the original title,
3. what it was written for,
4. approximately when it was written, and
5. how long it ran.

If you do NOT know facts 1-5 about the original title, I insist you immediately purchase John Caple’s “Tested Advertising Methods.” There are many other books you should have as well, but “Tested Advertising Methods” really is mandatory. Pick up a used copy for a few dollars; that’s what I did.

When Mr Caples claims tested advertising, he means it. He explains how titles, wording, layout, illustration, every possible variation on advertisements were quantitatively tested, and resulting numbers compared to find the most profitable combinations. Direct response advertising is very close to a science. You keep getting “junk mail” because junk mail keeps working, even after 80 years. If junk mail didn’t work, you wouldn’t get any. And it works because it’s tested.

Headlines matter the most

The most important result for bloggers out of all this advertising testing by Caples, and contemporaries E. Haldeman-Julius and Robert Collier is that headlines are the single most important element of an advertisement. This makes perfect sense on the internet, and headlines are more important than ever before. If you’re an unknown writer, make no mistake: your post titles are advertisements. Unless you’re writing strictly for yourself, or for very close friends and family, or you have a massive fan base built outside of the internet, your post and page titles are your primary means for luring readers from search engines results pages and RSS feeds. If your post title—your headline—doesn’t stand out from the 10-20 other titles on the page, you will attract very few readers.

I can hear you thinking: “Yeah yeah, I get it, headlines are important, so tell me how to write some!”

Ok. I will.

Actually, I’m going to defer to John Caples, and recap his 5 rules for headlines. He’s the expert, not me.

Let’s take a closer look.

Caples’ 5 rules for writing headlines

Starting in Chapter 2 of “Tested Advertising Methods,”Caples spends several chapters on just headlines. He provides 5 easy rules in Chapter 4, which I paraphrase in the following list (and provide some examples):

1. Promote the reader’s self-interest, first and foremost. “Blog” and “Money” are both terms lending themselves to self-interest.
2. Use the news whenever you can. Words like “New,” “Recent,” “Announcing,” “Introducing,” etc.
3. Provoke more than curiousity. Curiousity may be too easily satisfied. Say your title “Find Out The 8th Wonder Of The World,” your readers are finished when the instant you tell them “The 8th Wonder of the World is Marengo Cave!” Clickety click bye bye they’re gone.
4. Adopt a cheerful, positive tone. Alice Kooper got it right in one sense: people will definitely show up to a train wreck. But the evidence shows they won’t buy much more than popcorn, if that. In general: negative headlines don’t sell.
5. Suggest fast and easy results. Everyone wants benefits, and they want them now!

Here’s a few more suggestions gleaned from Caples:

• Suggest useful information of benefit to the reader.
• Avoid “deadness,” titles should bring your article to life, not read as an epitaph.
• Avoid cleverness or cuteness.
• Use plain language. Don’t make the reader work to unravel the meaning of the title.

Let’s check out the top 5 headlines of all time, in terms of pulling power.

The top 5 headlines of all time

Here’s the top 5 headlines I pulled from a list I found on the internet. This list has apparently been scraped from somewhere, and posted without attribution to what seems like every “Make M**** F***!” blog on the ‘net. (I won’t write those words “m*** m**** f***,” Google might spank me for a spammer or scammer.) Disclaimer: I can’t prove the numbers on these headlines for you, I can tell with full confidence that if these aren’t the top 5, by general consensus of what I’ve read (a lot), each is definitely in the top 10.

For each of the following headlines, I’ll add commentary and suggestions for how you might use the principles behind the headline to create your own article titles.

1. They laughed when I sat down at the piano – but when I started to play!

   This headline comes at the top of many lists, for good reason. It provokes curiosity without giving anything away, and has a strong self-interest appeal: drawing room culture at the time (1920s) was far different than today. All the “Best People” had pianos in their parlors. These days, even breathing the notion of “best people” will land you in hot water at any level of society. And who has a parlor? Finally, the title suggests important information to benefit the reader will follow.

   Personally, I believe the title of my article (“They Smirked When I Started the Blog—But When I Started To Make Money!”) is the best possible blatant ripoff copy in the context of blogging. I’m surprised nobody has already used it. Well, maybe it has been used, I haven’t checked, but I’m not going to until after I publish. Can you do better?

2. They grinned when the waiter spoke to me in French – but their laughter changed to amazement at my reply.

   To me, this headline is nearly identical to the previous: has self-interest, provokes curiosity, suggest benefit (increased social status) to the reader, etc. But who speaks French these days?

   Unless you’re selling French lessons, I find this one is really tough within the context of blogging. Again, the concept and execution is almost identical to “When I Started To Play!”, so let’s go with that, maybe something like: “They Snickered When…?” On second thought, maybe not. I leave this one to you, the reader, as an exercise.

3. Do you make these mistakes in English?

   Provokes curiosity, suggests benefits to the reader, who may not even know he or she is making such mistakes. I’ve read that this advertisement ran unchanged for 40 years. Presently, suggesting people make mistakes in their speech is culturally taboo, but the principle remains the same. People are mortified to learn they have been committing social faux pas without even knowing it.

   Now, I don’t care what you think about how I speak, but I’m vitally interested in my credibility as an author. So look for an upcoming article: “Do You Make These Mistakes Blogging?”

4. Can You Spot These 10 Decorating Sins?

   Same appeal as the previous.

   Again: “Can You Spot These 10 Blogging Sins?” This article is in draft, and I expect to learn a lot about blogging as I do the background research.

5. How a “fool stunt” made me a star salesman

   Provokes curiosity, suggests strong benefits!

   Perhaps: How A Fool Stunt Made Me A Star Blogger. This one is going to be tougher… What would be a fool blogging stunt? Writing 101 articles? Or writing 101 articles using the top 101 direct response headlines? I can’t write this one yet. But I just wrote “How A Fool Stunt Will Make Me A Star Blogger.”

Looking back over this list of the top 5, it’s obvious now that there are really only 3 different headlines. Had I to write it over, I would have chosen 5 headlines from the top 10. There are other lists, with a different mix in the top 5, you should conduct this same exercise with any of those.

Will these headlines work for you?

They might, they might not. Times and technology change, but people don’t. The principles stay the same, but the social context requires intelligently adapting your wording to your audience. If you’re just starting out, do a Google search on “101 top headlines” (or like terms). Several slightly different lists will appear in your search results. You should use every one of the headlines in the list as a template for creating new headlines. Each has worked well in the past, and can serve as excellent control for testing better headlines. (I’ll have more to say on “control” when I discuss permalinks in an upcoming article.)

What will work for you is

1. learning the tested principles behind each headline, and
2. testing headlines to see what works for you.

By the way, nobody in direct or direct response advertising wins awards. The advertisements driven by these headlines are not notable for creative design. They are notable because they made money. A LOT of money.

Did they smirk when you started blogging?

Now, let’s get down to brass tacks: you’re reading this article because the word “money” caught your attention. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading. It’s ok to admit it, at the minimum to yourself. And at the end of every effective sales pitch, there’s a call to action. Here’ my call to action: subscribe to the Website In A Weekend newsletter!

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