These may be the most helpful and entertaining headline examples you'll ever read

I’m currently obsessed with headlines. I love writing headlines. I think I have headline addiction because I can’t get enough of challenging myself to come up with something catchy in limited space.

Before that

What is the purpose of a headline?

Whether it’s for blogs or ads, the purpose of a headline is to promise useful information in a compelling enough way so people will click and read the whole content.

Why a good headline is important?

When you scroll your social media, forum, or Google, you ignore most of the content and only click a few. Yet, many of the content you skip may be one of the most entertaining or helpful ones.

There’s just tons of content competing for your attention. And you don’t have the time to read them all. That’s what millions of other people feel too. So, you can’t fuck up your headline. Else, you’ll stay unnoticed.

John Caples, author of How to Make Your Advertising Make Money, said,

Headline mistake only noob writers make

It’s a big, big mistake to write the headline first time and think that’s it. The first headline you draft is never the best.

Even veterans like David Ogilvy wrote more than 16 headlines before deciding on one. What makes you think you’re so great you can come up with the best headline in one attempt?

This doesn’t mean you should spam headlines just for the sake of writing them. You’re not trying to hit a quota. You should think properly and dump it so your mind can make way for other ideas.

After you have written them, leave them. Come back in a few hours or the next day with a fresh pair of eyes and improve where you see something has room for one.

The “How to Take Care of Your Children…” headline example above took me 3 rewrites to finalize it. First, I wrote “How to Take Care of Your Children Properly So They Don’t Become A Disgrace to The Family.'“

Then, I changed “Family” to “Bloodline” to make the headline more powerful.

But I changed “Bloodline” to “Family” back because I imagined a father getting mad at his whore daughter and shouting “You are a disgrace to the bloodline!” That sounds weird. I’m pretty sure no one says that.

Then I changed “Disgrace to The Family” to “Fucking Embarrassment to You” because being embarrassed is a stronger emotion than losing respect as embarrassment is a public experience while losing respect is a private realization.

Enough yapping, here are 5 types of headlines with 10 examples each, written by yours truly. Hope you’ll get inspired.

We’ll start with three types of headlines that can never go wrong. They’re probably also the most Lindy.

1. “How” headlines

Key point: Be specific.

• How to Make Friends And Influence People

• Here’s How to Create 100x Better Headline That Isn’t Suck And Boring

• How Not to Suck at Writing

• How to Make Your Business Stand Out (Even if Your Product Isn't The Best Yet)

• Here’s How to Increase Your Baby’s Chance of Having Above Average Intelligence

• How I Get 1000+ Reddit Karma in Less Than 24 Hours With Just One Post (I actually did this. Ez peasy)

• Here’s How to Get Free Drinks at The Club (No Sex Change Needed)

• Here’s How The News Tricked Us Into Thinking Phelp’s Olympic Dominance Is All About Hard Work

• How Not to Bore Your Date to Death

• How to Cheat on Your Partner and Not Feel Sorry About It

2. “Why” headlines

• Here Are 3 Reasons Why Email Lists Are Very Important to Every Content Creator

• You Still Stuck in Low Elo Despite Playing For Years? Here’s Why

• Why Black People Dominate Olympic Sprints?

• Why Are Reddit Full of Miserable People?

• Here’s Why Poor People Are a Menace to The Society

• 5 Reasons Why Malaysia Will Be The Next Taiwan

• Why Are The Elites Desperate to Send Their Kids to This School?

• Contrary to Rising SAT Scores, High School Graduates Are Actually Getting Dumber. Here’s Why

• Here’s Why Living In A High Rise Condo Is Better Than In A Bungalow

• Apple Sucks. Android Better. Here’s Why

3. Testimonial headlines

As the name suggests, this type of headline uses testimonial quotes. Look at this famous Ogilvy’s headline about Rolls Royce.

Fun story: I freelanced for this one sketchy company a long time ago. All the articles I need to write are very random listicles. For example, this week, I have to write about “10 Best Running Shoes.” Then, for the next one, suddenly it’s about “20 Best Restaurants in Marina Bay Sands.”

To make it seem like I’m a legit reviewer, I’ll search for reviews and testimonials from articles, blogs, or Amazon and paraphrase them. Until now, I still think the company I briefly worked for is just a shadow company for money laundering :)

Back to our agenda, below are examples I found on Amazon that may be used as a headline.

• “This lipstick lasts all day, through meals, drinks, and everything in between. I was amazed to see it still perfectly in place after 16 hours!”

• “This stuff really works! My headlights now look brand new, showroom bright.”

• “You don’t smell any poop once in the bag. They rarely, rarely break and with a thickness that makes you feel you’re not going to touch poop!”

• “My iced water stays cold for at least like 12 hours. I normally finish all the water and the ice cubes are still in the bottom unmelted.”

• “My 5-year-old loves it and hasn’t put it down since she opened it as her birthday gift.”

• “I got my 89-year-old mom a color book and Crayola to keep her mind busy. She enjoys all the colors in the box. She and her grandkids can color together now.”

• “Two weddings. A 12-hour day of standing, moving venues, dancing, etc. And a dance floor night, constant dancing and jumping for a solid 3-4 hours. My feet did not hurt. Unbelievably comfortable”

• “If you shave with cartridges and it’s not Gillette you are wasting your time. Gillette is simply the best a man can be…the best a man can get.”

• “Withstood one hectic international trip that lasted more than a week involving six different planes and three different countries—without a scratch”

• “The satin fabric feels incredibly luxurious and soft against the skin. Easy to sleep in... and easy to get off if the mood strikes”

4. “Sorry” headlines

For this type of headline, you can complement it with a subtitle like “Here’s how to fix that”, “Here’s why”, or “Here’s what you need to know.”

For example

• Sorry, Your Keyboard’s Response Time Is Shit. That’s Probably Why You Keep Bottom Fragging

• Sorry Apple Users, No iPhone Can Compete With This Android

• Sorry Photographers, These AI Companies Will Steal Your Job

• Sorry Boys, Being Handsome And Rich Isn’t A Guarantee That She’ll Stay

• Sorry, You’ll Not Be A Great Writer Obsessing Over Flawless Grammar

• Sorry Girls, Being Independent Isn’t Something To Be Proud Of. It’s Just Basic Adult Things

• Sorry Parents, It’s Not The School’s Fault Your Kids Don’t Perform

• Sorry Westerners, The Future Is Asian

• Sorry Swifties, Taylor Has Peaked. It’s Sabrina Carpenter’s Time

• Sorry Marketers, Cold Email Is Dead

P.S. Taylor could never be as hot as this

5. World-building headlines

I got a lot of shitty criticisms for this type of headline because “Muhh, it’s clickbait. You’re ruining the internet. No one will fall for this.”☝️🤓 

Shut up, nerds!

Any headline type can turn into clickbait if you don't back up your claims properly or if it doesn't connect with your content. Caaalma!

So, a world-building headline is a headline that strokes your readers’ deep desire or fear. For example, a startup creates a work productivity tool to help people work more efficiently. This is just a surface-level desire. There are deeper desires that are more powerful several layers down.

When you work efficiently, you can complete more tasks before the deadline. When you complete more tasks early, you won’t have to stay late. When you don’t have to stay late, you‘ll not miss dinner at home. So, the headline could be “This Work Productivity Tool Wants to Help You Never Miss Dinner At Home.”

How to prevent it from being a clickbait? You could use that headline when telling a story about the founder always missing dinner at home. So, he got frustrated and decided to build that tool so he never missed dinner anymore. After that, his brother-in-law started using it and found it very helpful then he realized his tool has commercial value.

• These Mistakes May Be Holding You Back From Being Able to Retire Your Parents Earlier

• These Places Make You Feel Like You’re In K-Drama

• A Playlist to Make You Feel Like You’re In the Champions League Final

• This Work Productivity Tool Wants to Help You Never Miss Dinner At Home

• New Fathers, Instill These Values to Your Son So He Don’t Turn Into An Embarrassment

• New Study Reveals How to Raise Kids Who Still Want to Visit You When They're Adults

• This Virtual Reality Game Wants Everyone to Experience Live One Direction Concerts

• This Criminal Lawyer Course Aims to Make You as Incredible as Saul Goodman

• This Is How To Help Your Dad To Never Stress About Money Anymore

• This Expert Fitness Instructor Wants to Help You Fit Into That Wedding Dress Again

Okay, that’s all. I hope you’ll get inspired. Subscribe to this newsletter here if you haven’t so you don’t miss me dropping helpful content that could make you a better writer.

Also, follow me on Twitter, @notsuckwriting, for my rants and chit-chats.

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