October 1, 2015 | less than a minute read

5 types of headlines that work better than you think

Passle

The article below summarizes the 5 types of titles you find the most frequently online. They're clickbait titles, but they work, or they wouldn't be around.

Would I advise people blogging for their business to use them? probably not.

Having said that, they can be useful, and I do think those blogging for their business should spend a little bit more time crafting titles.

As it stands, beginner bloggers tend to go for one of these types of titles:

short non-sequitur or obscure references. Makes sense once you read the article, but doesn't draw you in or describe the content at all.
long-winded. Gives you pretty much the whole article in a headline, with nothing much else in the content.

Plenty get it right, thankfully.

One of my first posts for Passle was 'How to write a killer headline without using linkbait', you might find it useful!

Headlines have changed. The days of pun-tastic headlines that you’d see in The Sun are dying, because spreading news online is a whole different animal. Online, there is constant noise, constant competition, and you have to stand out to be noticed. Clever, funny, complicated headlines just don’t work in this environment because if the reader isn’t told what to expect, they won’t click. It’s as simple as that. But for all its simplicity, this new type on online headline-writing comes with constantly changing trends and techniques. There are five major types of article headline. They all have their merits. Let’s have a look at them.