As a writer, I often struggle with creating titles – I hate to admit it, but yes, that is the weakness in my writing. This also applies to creating headlines and sub-headlines when I’m writing blog posts – when all the best options for a blog post headline seem to be taken, what do you do?
I hope I’m not alone in my struggle, which is why you’re reading this post right now. Let’s find out together how to create the best headline and sub-headlines for your blog posts.
Basics on Headlines
The difference between the headline and sub-headline in blogging has to do with formatting the content. The headline is the very first thing your typical reader will notice when they’re searching for something on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
Think of your blog post title the way a newspaper headline works – both have a limited amount of space in characters, including punctuation, and both have to catch the attention of the readers straightaway. In a sense, you’re competing with the news, but you’re also providing content that is just as valuable to readers.
Basics on Sub-headlines
The sentence above this one is what’s commonly referred to in blogging as the sub-headline. These are a way in which to both bring attention to sub-categories related to the topic you’re writing about, and they are an effective means to make the content more readable. If you’re struggling with sub-headlines still, allow me to provide you with an example.
Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about cats and you need to focus on treating them for diabetes at a veterinarian’s office. Are there different forms of diabetes for cats? What are the signs of them? What kind of treatment should we expect? How do we care for our sweet kitty when a diagnosis has been reached?
See, these ideas alone can help to create sub-headlines. It will help make the content of your blog post easier on the reader’s eyes as they’re skimming down the page, and help identify the parts they really need to find the most in your article.
Still Struggling with Your Headlines? Me too.
If you’re still struggling the way I am with titles and sub-titles, don’t worry; help is available. There are plenty of online tools that can generate headlines for blog post ideas when you’re really stuck and don’t know what to do.
These are a few examples of headline generators that are free to use:
Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator. Simply enter three nouns or the keywords you have in mind and it will come up with a week’s worth of ideas. While their system is not perfect and will require some tweaking, this is one of the best options.
Headline Wizard. This free application from Internet Marketing Course is more aimed to ad headlines, but you also can generate a few blog post ideas. You will need to enter information about the product or service you’re trying to sell and use present and past tense goals for best results.
TweakYourBiz Title Generator. Not only do you have the option to enter either a noun or verb describing your topic, but also you have the option to view what the title will look like by selecting one of the following: title case, sentence case, or in all caps (I recommend the former two personally). You can also use Tweak the Biz’s Thesaurus if you’re stuck on terms to use.
This is just a glimpse at the many free headline-creating websites available, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses – just like writers. Whatever you choose to do, always make sure your headline is snappy and attention-catching. Once you have that, the content itself will become easier to write.
Happy blogging!