9 Useful Headline Tools: Here is All You Need To Know
On State of Digital I wrote this.
Excerpt of the article:
Us marketers are polluting the web. Every second of the day we are pushing new content out, hoping as many people will see it.
I am a much bigger fan of creating less content that actually works than more content just for the sake of content. But, even when you create less, but more high quality content, there still is a lot of competition out there. And with every piece of content we create, the competition grows.
This means we need to stand out. I believe in creating content that speaks the language of your audience. Content created because it answers questions of those you are trying to reach.
But once you’ve created that content it is time to get it out there. You have to get people to look at your content first before they can see it is quality content in the first place. This is where the headline comes in.
A headline is what makes someone decide if they will read your article or not. We know headlines are important. According to copyblogger, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.
There are many theories about creating the best headline. I’m not going to talk about those here. I am also not going to talk about the ‘this is what happened next’-headlines you see polluting the web.
What I am going to talk about is something that will make creating headlines easier: tools. Tools that help you generate and test the best headlines.
The title writing process
Before I get into the actual tools let me explain the steps taken to create a headline. It’s pretty simple:
– First, there is the blogpost or topic idea
– Second, I write down several different potential titles. These are based on own ideas as well as from some of the tools described below.
– Third, I analyse the titles on potential success, again using some of the tools below
Another thing to keep in mind that sometimes you don’t just need one title. For different platforms you can use different titles.
Let’s dive into the tools. I’ll start with the tools that help you think of headlines. After that I will go into analysing them and finally I will show you how I came up with the title for this article.
Tools to come up with the headline
First the creation of the headlines. What’s important to know is that many of these tools go beyond creating titles. They actually help you think of topics to write about as well.
Inbound Now Kill Writer’s Block
Inbound now has a tool that is simple in use. You click on the “Click to Generate Title Idea” button and it will instantly suggest titles. No need to fill in any keywords, it just gives suggestions. The suggestions are headlines (or topics) with essentials left out. For example “Want To Be Amazing At [Keyword]? Here’s How”.
The ‘more inspiration’ button takes you to a Google Custom search. This shows you a list of articles published on Ezinearticles.
http://www.inboundnow.com/apps/kill-writers-block/
Blogabout
The first thing you’ll notice about the Blogabout topic generator is that is looks appealing. The concept is simple. Type in the topic. You will then be taken to the next page where you get a suggestion title. There is also the possibility to fill in your own keywords on that page.
If you are not happy with the headline or want more you can refresh.
A nice touch with Blogabout I feel is the “hearting”. This adds titles to your ‘notebook’, which makes it easy to save and to copy after or even have them e-mail to you.
http://www.impactbnd.com/blog-title-generator/blogabout
SEOPressor title generator
The SEOPressor title generator again is simple but effective. Type in your term and go. The nice thing here is the option you get to describe your keyword. Tell them if it’s about a person, generic term or event for example.
After submitting you will get 5 suggestions. If you’re not happy with them, ask for ‘more’ and you will get another five.
http://seopressor.com/blog-title-generator/
Content Row
Content Row is an extremely simple and effective tool to create headlines and get blog post ideas. It can’t get any simpler than this. Type in your keyword(s), hit the “get linkbait” button and you will have 20–30 suggestions for titles.
From here you need to distill your titles yourself, but for idea generation it is great.
http://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator
Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator
With Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator you can get actual suggestions for your headline. You fill in three nouns and Hubspot will return you five suggestions for headlines. If you want more you can subscribe. When subscribed you get an excel sheet with about 250 suggestions.
Take for example this post. I filled in the nouns “Headline”, “Tools” and “Great”. Here’s what Hubspost suggested me:
It works pretty good and gives you some nice suggestions. Of course it’s important (as with the others) to start with the right keywords.
http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator#/
Portent
The Portent Content Idea generator is, like others, more than just a title generator. It generates topics. Again this means you will have to try out and test the titles.
With Portent you fill in a topic and it will then return a suggestion. Let’s try “Headline tools” as a subject:
It gives me back one suggestion at a time. If I don’t like it I can try and refresh to see what other options they suggest. As with Hubspot this tool is good for coming up with potential headlines and topics.
What I like about Portent is that it explains the reasoning behind the words used in the suggestions. It will help you think further.
https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker
Using all these tools (or just one, what ever you prefer) you can make a list of potential headlines.
