Headlines That Get Results: 10 Essential Tips You Need To Know

Welcome to the world of Health and Wellbeing marketing.

Chances are you’ve found this article because:

A, you’re a business owner trying to write your own marketing and you’re finding it tough.

Or,

B, you’re a copywriter or content marketer that’s struggling to get your work seen.

So, let’s begin with the obvious.

You want what you’ve written to be seen.

You’ve written it for a reason. For business owners, digital marketers, and brands there is a real struggle to get your content in front of your audience.

In this article you’ll discover the unbelievable stats of Google’s search engine and just how difficult the challenge to be seen is.

But you’ll also uncover ten powerful tips that give your headlines the very best chance of grabbing people’s attention.

How competitive is the internet?

To give you an idea of the content creation landscape. There were approximately 600 million blogs in the world (At the end of 2023). 

On top of that 96.55% of traffic gets absolutely ZERO traffic from Google. (ahrefs)

This may seem like an enormous mountain to climb, but do not lose hope.

It’s worth the effort as a blog increases your chances of ranking higher in search by 434%.

With strategy and consistency, you can position yourself on the golden steps of Google’s top ranks. Don’t let your health and wellness business fade into the background.

In this article, I’m not just going to talk about blogs. Although you’ve probably realised by now just how important they are to any brand’s marketing strategy.

I’m going to share with you a list of 10 tips to make your health and wellness headlines more noticeable, more specific, and more effective.

All of these strategies have a proven track record and will work for you time and time again. They’re not always easy to nail so it’s worth investing your time and energy practising, honing, and refining your headline-writing skills for any medium you use.

That could be blogs, emails, landing pages, or social media. (Or anything else you want people to keep reading). It’s ok to get it wrong while you’re learning.

If you need some inspiration, check out my article on why failing is the best way to get better. 

Here’s why your headline is so vital. The headline will make or break the success of your article or website. You have between 0-8 seconds to engage your reader or they will disappear into thin air and on to the next website (probably of your competitor). 

In short. You MUST nail this skill.

So, without further ado, here are your top ten tips for nailing an effective headline.

There may even be a bonus one at the end for extra value.

Top Tip One: Write for your audience, not for the search engine.

We all know about Google’s very clever ranking system. Some content creators may use lots of ‘Google-friendly’ words in their headlines, but this often comes at a cost to the reader.

The real people who are searching for an answer to their query.

People who have a genuine need for a wellness solution.

As a result, you’ll fail to make a connection with your reader, and they will slam the brakes on your site immediately.

Of course, there is a little balance to this formula as you do need to consider the audience you are writing for. Your headline, as well as your meta-title should be relevant to your content and always seeking to answer the needs of your readers.

Top Tip Two: Use natural, human language.

This is 2024! AI has emerged and is the talk of the town. I can almost guarantee that you have read content produced solely by AI by now.  And it’s not good.

Whilst there are those out there who are mastering the art of AI prompting, there’s also Google’s counter strike. It measures consistency, purpose, and intent. In short, it can hazard a good guess if your content is going to be valuable to your intended audience.

AI may have the learning capacity that can compete with and surpass humans but it’s lacking one crucial factor.  It isn’t human. Despite studies that suggest its capacity to learn social skills. 

What’s more, humans engage with emotion rather than logic. 

So, keep that human touch in everything you write.

Always remember, you’re providing a service for their health & wellbeing.

These are real people who will make human decisions.

Top Tip Three: Aim for Clarity and Consistency.

Your headline should seek to immediately inform your reader that they’ve found what they’re looking for.

Don’t hold back the big news for later in the work because you would have lost your user before they even got that far.

Remember, that your headline serves like the flashing light in a snowstorm. It should make the promise that the rest of your article will go on to deliver.

Clarity and consistency are also important when choosing your H1 and meta-title. They don’t have to be identical, but they should both include the keywords that serve to help your reader AND to get you seen in a search engine.

Top Tip Four: Avoid Clickbait Headlines.

Avoid at all costs. This immediately discredits your work, no matter how well it may be written.  Internet users are very savvy these days and they can tell when a headline is exaggerated, dumb, or plain not true.

People will quickly lose trust with an article and brand that uses clickbait.

Above all, clickbait has wasted their time, and they won’t thank you for it.

Let’s not forget that the ever-sophisticated Google machine will find a gap between the intent of the headline and the content of the work.

This could lead to a penalty in Google search ranking.

It’s worth spending your time crafting a headline that is genuine and helpful.

Top Tip Five: Avoid Keyword Stuffing.

For many of the same reasons as the previous point.  Keyword stuffing is the practice of jamming the headline with repetitive phrases to double or triple up on keywords.

An example would be: Get Healthy with These Health Hacks. Your Way to Great health.

This outdated practice used to be an effective way of tricking the SEO bots to rank higher, but no more.

It falls under the umbrella of strategies Hubspot call Black Hat SEO.

And besides, would you click a headline like that?

I didn’t think so.

Top Tip Six: KISS

Keep.

It.

Simple.

Stupid.

With so many choices available to us online these days the task of capturing attention is harder than ever.  The health and wellbeing market is flooded.

Not only that, but attention spans are getting shorter.

By keeping it simple you are reducing the load for a person’s cognitive capacity i.e. make them do less thinking. Less thinking means less friction, less barriers, and less reasons to drop out.

People shouldn’t have to work hard to read your website, email, or blog. So, if the headline is wordy then that promises the reader that the content will be wordy too (even if it isn’t).

Top Tip Seven: Grammar.

This one should be obvious, but it only takes a quick browse before you find online content with spelling and grammar mistakes.

Here’s some funny ones to get you started - https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-spelling-mistakes-punctuation-grammar-police-facebook-fails/

By now you should hopefully know that this is doubly, no, triply important in headlines.

Remember, headlines are the sign outside the store that shouts ‘COME IN!’.

They’re the promise that the answer you seek is inside.

So, who wants to read an article that has spelling and grammar mistakes?

It makes it clunky to read and harder to find what you’re looking for.

No matter how amazing your health and wellbeing product is, there’s no excuse for bad grammar.  It just looks plain unprofessional.

If spelling and grammar aren’t your strong suit, that’s totally ok. 

Just remember to use any of the great online tools to check before you post.

Top Tip Eight: Address the Reader’s need.

Hopefully, when you write health and wellbeing content it’s for a specific purpose.

It’s to provide value, satisfy a need, or answer a question.

Time is of the essence (I may have mentioned that by now).

So, grab your reader’s attention with a headline that quickly gets to the point of answering their needs.

A great way of checking if you’ve achieved this is to put yourself in your reader’s shoes.

Imagine you were someone who needed to write content but wished they could write better headlines (ahem😁).

What would you search for? And what kind of headline would you click vs which ones would you keep scrolling past?

Well, you clicked on this one so hopefully that gives you a hint.

Top Tip Nine: Include Numbers.

This isn’t a new strategy, it’s a timeless one.

It gives your reader a really clear expectation of what to expect when they click on your headline.

Readers like predictability.

It also promises a handy list of points the reader can take away and put into action.

Neil Patel says that headlines that use higher numbers tend to rank better in SEO.

And as a bonus, headlines with numbers are also the highest shared posts on social media.

Top Tip Ten: Use Power Words.

These are powerful nouns and verbs which create a sense of emotion in your reader.

They can be used to reassure, excite, and motivate.

Words like ‘Best’, ‘Unique’, ‘Seamless’, all create a sense of passion and increase your chances that the reader will click.

This shouldn’t be too hard in the world of health and wellbeing.

People value their health more than anything else so there’s a huge choice power words that will connect to your reader.

Note: make sure the content delivers what the headline promises, otherwise…uh oh, it’s bit clickbait-y and your readers will flee.

Summary (and the bonus Top Tip).

Hopefully by now you have a much better idea of how to craft a headline that’s catchy, impactful, and SEO-friendly.

Repeat after me “I vow to never write a bad headline again.”

(It’s ok if you do – they can’t all be bangers!)

Either way, don’t give up.  Show some grit and you’ll get there.

Remember, your headline is the flag you wave to attract attention, it’s the promise you make to answer your reader’s questions, it’s the map that tells them what to expect when they click.

Oh yes, and the bonus…

Top Tip Eleven: Use a Headline Analyser.

Once you’re happy with your headline you should always put it to the test.

There’s lots of free headline analysing tools out there, so pick one and use it before you hit ‘publish’ on your content.

Edit, edit, and edit again until it hits the mark, then you’re ready to go.

My personal favourite is the headline analyser from Monster Insights - https://www.monsterinsights.com/headline-analyzer/

The Top Ten tips for writing health and wellbeing headlines – The Recap.

In this article we’ve explored the problem most health and wellbeing businesses face today.

Finding exposure online.

We’ve learned just how competitive Google’s search rankings are and that a gigantic 96.55% of content will never be seen by anyone.

Being seen online should be your main mission if you want success for your health and wellbeing business.

It all starts with your headline!

By now you’ll have a good understanding of my top ten tips for crafting an attention-grabbing headline but that’s just the beginning.

As your next step, I’d recommend exploring more about how content marketing and sales funnels work in health and wellbeing. 

But, if you really want to elevate your business, save yourself time and get results quicker then you should book yourself a FREE 1:1 strategy call with me TODAY.

Comment below, what are your thoughts?

Did I miss anything?