Your next post might bomb without these 4 headline components
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I can’t resist a good headline.
It doesn’t matter if it’s here on Sustack, or on YouTube, or even on more traditional social media platforms.
If it stops me scrolling long enough to consider what might be contained within the article itself, it’s automatically in the top 1% of all headlines I come across.
And I read a lot of stuff every day.
So let’s talk about why headlines are so gosh-darn important.
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Why are headlines so important?
Let’s look at Medium, for instance. If you’ve been on it for more than 5 minutes, you’ll probably have already read a story about headlines.
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The truth is, headlines are crucial.
In fact, they’re often more critical to the success of your post than the actual content of the post itself. Because if your headline’s no good and doesn’t stop the scroll, no-one’s going to read your story.
That’s how article-bombs are born.
What makes a good headline?
I constantly grapple with what makes a good headline good.
This grappling manifests as never-ending experimentation. I look back on the headlines of old articles, analyse what worked and what didn’t, and try again.
And again. And again.
Persistence eventually pays off on the interwebs, and that goes double for headline experimentation.
If you ask me, there are generally 4 key elements to every good headline on Substack, Medium, or anywhere else online: