Dazzle Them with Headlines

The most important element of your opt-in page or opt-in form is your headline. If you can’t get readers to read that, grab their attention and convince them to keep reading, everything else you do doesn’t really matter. Yes, it really is that crucial. With that said, let’s take a look at four different tips on writing headline copy that will convert visitors into subscribers.

Headline Formatting Tips

Let’s start with something easy. Your headline needs to be easy to read, stand out, and grab your reader’s attention. Make the text large and bold in strong color. Center it across your page and leave enough white space around it to make it easy to see and stand out.

Content Ideas And Strategies

The hardest part is to write the actual headline. You want it to do one or more of these three things:

• Be specific
• Invoke emotions
• Solve a problem

The best way to get good at writing strong headline copy is to look at what other people are doing that’s working well and trying to emulate. Keep an eye out for headlines that grab your attention and then see if you can make them work for your niche and your market.

Create a swipe file of headline examples that you can pull from anytime you need to write a new headline. Looking up case studies of opt-in forms can also be helpful.

Subheadings And When To Use Them

A subheading for your headline is completely optional, but can be a very helpful element. For example, if you are writing a headline that mainly grabs your reader’s attention or arouses their curiosity, a subhead can give a little more information about what this is about.

A subheading is also a great tool when you’re working on segmenting your list. Your sub-headline can be the qualifier that includes or excludes different segments of your target market (i.e. the perfect tool for teachers, the perfect tool for homeschoolers, and the perfect tool for parents).

Test, Test, Test, And Test Some More

Last but not least, no matter how much you study and write what you think is the perfect headline, each site, each target audience, and each opt-in page is different. You may have a pretty good idea of what should work, but you can never really be sure until you start to test.

You may have heard of A/B Testing. This is typically what you would do with optins, stories, and social shares. You test, test, and test some more to ensure that the best content is seen and further shared by your audience and their connections in turn.

The Rundown

Keep going until you run out of fresh ideas for things to test and always try to beat your previous conversion. That’s how you come up with truly awesome headline copy. Don't be afraid to test your ideas as this will be the only way to figure out what works and what doesn't. If you fail once, keep going until you get that win!