Your Headlines Are Too Clever

I get it.

You’re funny, smart, thoughtful and well-informed.

The publications you read all have quippy titles that arouse your curiosity and compel you to read them.

Even the weekly paper in your town—the one that rounds up all the fun things to do, bands playing and astrology for the week—uses playful headlines.

The headlines are clever and sometimes a bit cheeky.

They work great for print publications.

But they’re a disaster for online publications like your blog.

You have about one nanosecond to capture people’s attention with online content. We’re all scrolling madly and being super judgy discerning about what we’re going to give our attention to.

And once our attention is gone, it’s gone.

We’re not going to scroll back to see what promise that vague headline held.

So, here’s the deal:

Prioritize clarity over cleverness with your headlines.

Once you have people’s attention, you can add sprinkles of cheeky, smart and clever in your content.

But beware of scaring them off before you even get the chance with a headline that misses the mark.