The headline is the first thing that catches the impression of a reader. Therefore it is very important that you have an eye catching headline at the start. Without a proper headline the rest of your article loses its effectiveness.

It is interesting to note that a powerful and well written headline does more than just grab interest. A great headline communicates a full message to its audience.

At best, an effective headline promises benefits and rewards for the reader, in exchange for the time spent by a reader in reading the article.

Features of a powerful headline:

Direct Headlines go straight to the heart of the matter.

On the other hand an indirect headline adopts a more fine approach. This approach uses the principle of adopting a double approach. E.g. An article may have a headline such as Fresh Bait Works Best and still may have nothing to do with fishing; it may actually be about writing timely content that acts as link bait.

A News Headline is self-explanatory in itself. These include product announcements for instance announcing newly added features.

The How to Headline could be found anywhere both offline and online. It almost works like a charm. It is a generally accepted fact among advertising writers that you can’t write a bad headline if you begin with the words How to…

When writing a Question Headline it is important to keep in mind that the headline must be more than a question. It should also answer that question. E.g. Do You Close the Bathroom Door even when you’re the Only One at Home?

The Command Headline directly addresses the reader as to what needs to be done. E.g. Subscribe to our free newsletter Today!

Another useful headline is the Reason why headline. Here the article text will usually consist of a list of product features or tips. These are incorporated into the headlines. Here it may not even be necessary to include the words "reason why."

Last but not least is the Testimonial Headline, another very effective headline as it provides outside evidence of the great value it offers. This usually means including a recommendation of what someone else has said about your product or service.