How To Write Great SEO Headlines – Put Yourself In Their Shoes

When I was younger, I used to go fishing a lot with my dad, and one of the skills that great fisherman seemed to possess was the ability to know where the fish were likely to be. This was something that always impressed me, it was almost like they were inside the minds of the fish… and whilst I never did manage to master the arts of angling, I did seem to transfer this technique to the Internet.

Here is what you do:

1) Decide the core message you are about to write

2) Put yourself into the shoes of a Google searcher who is looking for that message

Let’s presume we are writing about SEO headlines. As an author, I may be tempted to create a headline like “Killer SEO Headlines“.

But who is going to type that into Google?

So I could be more specific and write: “How You Can Write Great SEO Headlines”

Sounds like a decent headline… right?… wrong!

You see, nobody is going to go to Google and write in second person. Remember, you need to get inside their mind, what would they write?

They would put the focus on themselves, e.g “How Can I Write Great SEO Headlines“.

Notice how I used “I” instead of “you”.

A safer bet is to simply be non-specific: “How To Write Great SEO Headlines”. In this example I used “to” instead of “I” or “You”.

So next time you are writing a headline with the aim of getting good Google rankings, go to Google.com first, and type whatever you think will get the best results, then, simply use that as your headline. Simple!

Dean

P.S. This technique doesn’t always work… I recall 5 years ago I was in Manchester airport with some friends, and we were lost and looking for “Gate H”, one of my friends turned to me and said: “Dean, if you were Gate H, where would you be?”

P.S.S. for more insight, check out these digital marketing tips by Miles Anthony Smith.