The headline you write for your article, blog post or tweet is one of the main reasons for your success or failure on the Web. Although headlines seem to be the first and the easiest way in making content, they’re the most important so far. Everyone on the Internet wants to get the highest clicks, so creating powerful and captivating headlines are essential to increase the click-through rate (CTR) of your content. Luckily there are a lot of tricks to attract people’s attention through headlines. So, when it comes to growing CTR there are 9 ideas which will help you write fascinating headlines.

How to get better CTR with your headlines

1. “How to” headline

We all have a lot of questions and we want to get answers for all our questions as soon as possible. When we want to know the answer of our question on Google, we write “How to ….”. So try to use “how to”-s in your headline, as it makes a strong and clear promise and lets people to learn something they may be searching for. Here are some examples of “how to” headlines:

• How to create a perfect Facebook business page?
• How to be successful in your startup?
• How to grow a large readership?

2. “Be afraid” headline

Let’s accept the fact, that you click on the articles which warn you about something dangerous. The reason is that you want to feel safe, no matter it’s related to your personal health, business success or something else. When you feel danger, you probably imagine the worst situation that can happen and you become willing to know more about your problem. So “be afraid” headlines are always eye-catching. Here are some examples:

• Warning: You may lose your money because of the upcoming crisis
• 10 mistakes to avoid while launching a new product
• Is your business safe from competition?

3. “Calm down” headline No matter we are students or professional workers, we always think that we are not going enough and that something is wrong in our actions. The purpose of “calm down” headline is to tell your reader that everything is OK, because whenever you help someone to simplify their lives, they will remember you once and forever. Here are some “calm down” headline examples:

• 8 ways to better concentrate on workplace
• 5 ways of working less and producing more
• 10 ways online marketing can help you in your business

4. Use action words

Using action words can have an impact on readers’ emotions and make them click on your posts. People want information and satisfaction. Create such headlines with powerful words which will promise reader some attractive information after they click on your link. Use the word “you”, as in this case they feel that you’re just writing for them. Another examples of action words are:

• Secret
• New
• Free
• Exclusive

5. Learn the art of intrigue

To make your articles read you should put some intrigue on your headline. The best headlines leave something to think about in the readers’ minds. Undoubtedly, dramatic headlines are much more effective than just sample than sample ones. In order to know the matter of the fact, readers have nothing to do but to click the link and read the whole article. Some examples of this type of headlines are:

• Look what happened yesterday during the conference
• This story will leave you speechless!

6. Put questions on headlines

Statements are not as attracting as questions. It lets reader to imagine the answers for a while and then the read the full article to find the real truth. Moreover, researches show 70% of internet users are most likely to click on the questions rather than on the statements. Here are some question-headlines:

• Do you want to promote your app with no budget? Here are some ways
• Which type of marketing is the best? Inbound or outbound?

7. Address the reader directly

Never address people with second person voice! It makes them feel that that information is not for them. Instead use the first person voice by commanding them personally. Tell how important that article will be for their lives and they will be willing to click on your link! Some examples may include:

• You need this information!
• Do you want to work in one of the top 10 companies in your country?

8. Use listings

In many cases people avoid reading unlisted articles, as it seems to be too long and boring. They prefer reading listed articles, because they feel they can scan the content very quickly. So you try to create some sort of list in your content and put the number of points in the headlines, like you can see in our article.

9. Apply thumbnails

Many headlines are now accompanied by thumbnails, icons or little pictures. It’s proven that they gain people’s attention and impact on clicker’s final decision. In addition many researches show that people are likely to read articles where there are many infographics, pictures rather than articles with the plain text. So use thumbnails ig you want to grow your CTR. So here are some 9 basic tips to grow CTR with captivative headlines. Do you any other ideas that worked for you? Share them with us on the comments below.