Do you want to write irresistible headlines? Are you wondering if headline analyzers are worth it?
Using a headline analyzer can mean the difference between the headlines your users notice and click and the headlines they skip right over.
David Ogilvy, a.k.a. the father of advertising, once said: “When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Now we’ll explain how to spend those 80 cents wisely… and write great headlines that help drive more clicks, traffic, shares, and rankings.
Why Use a Headline Analyzer? Do You Really Need It?
We believe everyone should be able to write a great headline regardless of their skill set.
Unfortunately, most people fail to make their headlines compelling because there’s no clear-cut way to write one. This is why we decided to build a headline analyzer at WPBeginner.
WPBeginner’s Headline Analyzer makes it easy to write irresistible headlines that your users can’t help but click. Backed by data, our free tool reviews your headlines and provides suggestions to help you earn the highest number of click-throughs.
Here are a few benefits of our title analyzer…
- Get an analysis of how click-worthy your headline is
- Easily customize and refine the title based on the recommendations until you write the best one
- No signup or installation is required. It’s absolutely FREE!
How WPBeginner Headline Analyzer Works
WPBeginner’s Headline Analyzer makes it easy to evaluate your title on a scale of 1 to 100. All it takes is 3 easy steps.
- Enter Your SEO Headline in the Tool
- Follow Recommendations to Improve Your Headline
- Refine and Repeat Until You Get a Good Score
Let’s take a detailed look at each step.
Step 1: Enter Your SEO Headline in the Tool
The first thing you’ll need to do is to come up with at least 3 to 5 headlines and submit them in the headline checker.
On average, only 1 out 5 people will click through to read your articles, but you can improve your chances of attracting more visitors if you come up with multiple headlines for every article you write.
The benefit is that when you aim for more titles, you get desperate, and you’ll be more likely to think out of the box. This ultimately results in producing a great headline that drives traffic, rankings, and share.
The best part is that by using a headline analyzer, it doesn’t matter if your original headline ideas aren’t click-worthy on your first attempt.
As you submit your potential titles, our headline checker tool gives you suggestions to improve them. Then you can pick one of those headlines and then improve it until you get a great score.
Step 2: Follow Recommendations to Improve Your Headline
Once you submit your headline, you’ll get detailed insights into what works and where you need to improve in order to make it more enticing.
Our headline analyzer grades your headlines on a scale of 1-100, where 1 is the least score, and 100 is the perfect score.
For best results, it’s recommended to aim for a score of 70 or above.
Here are the factors our headline analyzer considers when grading your title.
- Word balance: A great headline will have the perfect balance between common, uncommon, and emotional words
- Common words: Most headlines will have enough common words, but it’s proven to get more organic clickthroughs if it had more uncommon words
- Uncommon words: Generally speaking, uncommon words improve your click-throughs. Always make sure it sounds natural too for the best results
- Emotional words: When a headline triggers emotions, like anger, happiness, fear, love, they’re more likely to entice clicks
- Power words: Like emotional words, power words also evoke curiosity and help your headlines stand out from the rest
- Sentiment: Positive headlines tend to get better engagement than neutral or negative ones
- Headline type: Headlines that are lists and how-to get more engagement on average than other types of headlines
- Word count: A general rule of thumb is to use a headline with about 6 words
- Character count: SEO plugins and tools often encourage users to use a title between 60 to 70 characters max for the best results
Step 3: Refine and Repeat Until You Get a Good Score
Once you find a decent headline from your original headline ideas, it’s time to refine that headline until it gets a good score.
To improve your headline score, you might have to combine the positives of different headlines into one. You’ll also have to follow the suggestions provided by the tool and submit the revised one to the analyzer.
Writing Irresistible Headlines That Work
Now you know how WPBeginner’s Headline Analyzer works.
To create magnetic headlines that attract your target audience, it’s worth taking a moment to examine a few more tips that are proven to work.
Find a Perfect Word Balance
Smart copywriters always keep a balance between power words, common words, and uncommon words in their headlines.
At WPBeginner, we often use the following power words, like compared, step by step, ultimate, easily, and so on. Here are some examples:
- 5 Best WordPress Membership Plugins Compared
- How to Easily Create a Multilingual WordPress Site
- How to Make a WordPress Website (Ultimate Guide)
Using power words is arguably the quickest and easiest way to get your title noticed and clicked.
Below are a few power words that you can use in your headline, depending on your niche.
- Greed words: special, b.s., skyrocket, no good, payback, six-figure
- Curiosity words: sneak peek, limited, shocking
- Fear words: shocking, banned, caution, backlash, be the first, beware
- Convenience words: guide, in less than, quick, freebie, gift, how-to
- Lust words: compelling, shameless, stimulating, magnetic, sex, sinful
- Bragging words: gorgeous, amazing, fearless, elite, elegant, epic
- Trust words: ensured, fully refundable, according to, expert, lifetime, proven
- Anger words: stuck up, abuse, corrupt, annoy, B.S., underhanded
Choose a Perfect Word Length
Just as word balance, the headline length is also an important measure.
Headlines that are too lengthy get cut off from Google Search results, email inbox, social media feeds, and so on. Generally, too short headlines fail to incite curiosity, resulting in dropping click-throughs.
When writing SEO titles, a common practice is to keep the number of characters under 60 so as to make sure the title fits in the search snippet and other marketing channels.
Start Writing a Captivating Headline Now!
Remember… the attention span of your website visitors has been dropping consistently. That means you only have a few seconds to catch your target’s attention through your headline.
Fortunately, it only takes a few attempts to get going with our headline analyzer tool, and you’ll be on your way to writing catchy headlines that work.
Now that you learned how to write a captivating SEO headline that your users can’t help but click, it’s your turn to improve other SEO aspects of your website. Here are some helpful guides:
- Ultimate WordPress SEO Guide for Beginners
- 14 Best WordPress SEO Plugins and Tools That You Should Use
- 13-Point WordPress SEO Checklist for Beginners
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.