Have you ever wondered why your site or posts does not get clicks, views, and visitors as expected, even after putting in your best in creating the articles?
Well, there are many reasons why sites like BuzzFeed or Upworthy get so many clicks, views, and site visitors.
The major reason is that these sites use, powerful and engaging headlines that make people want to view the whole story by clicking on their content.
Over the years, certain types of headlines have been more successful than others, but there isn’t one right way to write a headline. You will write headlines that will persuade people to click on your content by following certain headline formulas.
Here’s how to write powerful headlines that people can’t help but click using the 4U formula.
Why Headlines Matter
Your headlines can either grab the attention of your audience or bore them. Your prospective customers will make their first impressions about your brand from the headlines you write so you need to get them right.
Your headlines should focus on enticing the visitors to click on your content and not on selling to them because it could be a turnoff.
Users will bounce from your page immediately if the content doesn’t match the headline. Therefore, you need to ensure your headlines are an accurate representation of the contents of the page.
Fake headlines can lead to giving your brand a bad tag and will make your business suffer in the long term. This is because most people believe the headlines that they see so make sure your headlines adhere to your company’s values.
You can avoid using misleading, false, or boring headlines that can hurt your business if you stick to the formulas in this article.
4U Formula Headlines
The 4U formula is the first formula you need to know about.
You have to make your headline as intriguing as possible if you want to boost the odds of people actually clicking on your headlines and reading the entire post.
The 4U formula instructs you to make your headline “useful, urgent, unique, and ultra-specific.
Useful headlines
Start out by understanding what will be useful to your audience, and then offer them what they need. You need to offer people useful value in your headlines.
Think about the headlines you do click on when you are scrolling through your news feed, they are probably headlines that offer something that can help you.
The headlines in this category should identify a problem and offer a solution and so should the articles that go along with them. This works for both service-based companies and those that are product-based.
How-to articles and listicles are good examples of headlines that are useful.
Urgent headlines
These days, it’s easy to ignore headlines that are not time-sensitive because there is so much online content trying to grab attention. So try and create a sense of urgency in your headlines to push people to click.
Readers don’t want to miss out on exciting, helpful, or informative content that they need immediately. However, when something is urgent, readers will often click on the headline to get the information right away.
Urgency is the hardest of four U’s to capture, and it might not always apply to your article’s topic. This is one to think about leaving out if you are going to skip over any of the 4 U’s.
Examples of urgent headlines include: “Avoid This Mistake before it’s Too Late” or “Do XYZ in Just 2 Weeks With This One Simple Trick”.
Traditional news outlets use urgency in their headlines all of the time. You can check out Fox News on this one.
Unique headlines
People love unusual and rare phrases. They stick out like a sore thumb and pique people’s interest so that they have to click on them. In an unsaturated online world, anything that you can do to make your headline stand out will help.
Think about focusing on puns, wordplay, and interesting topics.
Ultra-specific headlines
Have you ever wondered why so many headlines these days have numbers in them? It’s because they are ultra-specific. Best headlines take specific ideas and break them down one step further.
Readers like to know exactly what they can expect if they click on a headline. For example, don’t just write about foods to avoid; talk about common foods to avoid or 5 common foods to avoid.
Finally, this is all about understanding what will be useful to your audience. You will come up with better article headlines that will draw people’s attention to read because they offer an answer to their problems when you make sure that all your headlines are useful, urgent, unique, or ultra-specific, or even a combination of all.
