Enterprise Nation

Here at Enterprise Nation we’re just loving the new blog created by one of our members, Ian Blackford. The blog is at www.bloggingrocket.com and there you’ll find a post on good copywriting. It led us to a great piece on how to write headlines that get noticed.

Appearing at Copyblogger.com

Your headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a headline or post title that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist.

But a headline can do more than simply grab attention. A great headline can also communicate a full message to its intended audience, and it absolutely must lure the reader into your body text.

At its essence, a compelling headline must promise some kind of benefit or reward for the reader, in trade for the valuable time it takes to read more.

In The Copywriter’s Handbook,  copywriter extraordinaire Bob Bly sets forth eight time-tested headline categories that compel action and rake in sales:

• Direct Headlines go straight to the heart of the matter, without any attempt at cleverness. Bly gives the example of Pure Silk Blouses – 30 Percent Off as a headline that states the selling proposition directly. A direct blog post title might read Free SEO E-book.
• A News Headline is pretty self-explanatory, as long as the news itself is actually, well… news. A product announcement, an improved version, or even a content scoop can be the basis of a compelling news headline. Think Introducing Flickr 2.0 or My Exclusive Interview With Steve Jobs.
• Another effective technique is called the Reason Why Headline. Your body text consists of a numbered list of product features or tips, which you then incorporate into the headline, such as Two Hundred Reasons Why Open Source Software Beats Microsoft. It’s not even necessary to include the words “reasons why.” This technique is actually the underlying strategy behind the ubiquitous blogger “list” posts, such as 8 Ways to Build Blog Traffic.

Click the link below to read the remaining 5 headline categories. And the next link to view posts on bloggingrocket.com

• How to write headlines that work, via copyblogger.com 
• Bloggingrocket.com