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9 Surprising Places You Need a Powerful Headline
Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content , with 750K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.
Updated 6.18.26
It’s been drilled into you from the beginning: you must have a powerful headline for your article, blog post, or web page.
But what about all the other places you need a powerful headline … and may not know it?
A headline is text that introduces the subject matter of your piece of content.
Its job? To pull in the reader by attracting attention. A headline accomplishes that mission by announcing news, offering a benefit, asking a question, providing useful information, explaining how or why, presenting a problem and a solution …
So yes, by all means, write a strong headline for your article, blog post, web page …
But don’t stop there.
Write headline-type text for all kinds
of media (if you want readers)
Maybe you don’t call an Instagram caption or an email subject line a “headline.” Nevertheless, treat that headline-esque snippet of text like a headline … and you’ll grab your reader’s eyeballs.
That means you can apply long-established headline-writing rules to all kinds of media you create – say, a video or a meta title. The headline’s role is simply to pull your reader into your content, right?
“We now have to craft an eye-catching, clickable headline for almost every channel where our content can be discovered,” says Ash Read, editorial director at social media software giant Buffer.
Write your headline to fit the channel
Facebook caption vs. a tweet: yep, the most successful are different from each other. As are email subject lines … taglines … lead magnet titles … even subheads in your article.
Know how each platform attracts readers. Then, slant your headline to that channel’s mode of operation. Your headlines will stop readers from scrolling.
9 places you need a powerful headline –
and how to slant it
Where are these places that beg for powerful headline-like text … and how should you slant each kind? Take a look.
1. Tweets: A powerful headline generates
curiosity
Twitter (X) limits posts to 280 characters, including spaces and other symbols. Good tweets act like a headline – they’re quick, simple, and easy to process. The best tweets offer a benefit or generate curiosity with an interesting fact or question, with the keywords front-loaded in the first 50-60 characters. (Here are 10 tips for writing good tweets.)
2. Facebook posts: A powerful headline
is personal
Long or short, your Facebook posts need to grab attention. Readers scroll through their feeds and may not stop unless you capture them with the first few words of your post. Use Facebook’s slant towards personal stories and opinion as you write headlines – your post’s opening line – in a conversational, “you-me” style. Facebook post titles with 90 characters or fewer receive the most shares.
3. Photo captions: A powerful headline
gives new information
Photos in an article, blog post, or web page act as mini-headlines, but don’t use them to repeat what you’ve already written in the main heading or body content. Use captions to give the reader new information.
4. Instagram captions: A powerful headline
entertains
Entertaining: that’s the byword for Instagram captions. Here’s where you write a funny, fascinating, or provocative headline – one that reflects your personality or brand. Be sure to lead off your captions with the image’s keywords. Keep Instagram captions to 125 characters or less.
5. Search
engine meta titles: A powerful headline frontloads keywords
A meta title is the text that appears as the page title in a web browser. The key to powerful meta title headlines? Use the page’s keywords.
- Front-load the keyword or phrase at the beginning of the meta title. The best meta titles are 50-60 words. Longer than that will be cut off by the browser. Add the title tag in the back end or header of your site (depending on your website platform) as you write the page.
- And while you’re loading the page, make sure you headline-ize its meta description. That’s the snippet of content that appears below a page link on search results. Keep the meta description to 160 characters or less, if possible, because search engines like brevity.
- And be sure to include your web page’s keywords in the first part of the meta description. Why? Because readers use keywords to search. When they see keywords in the description, they’re more likely to click on the page. Oh yeah – AI likes keywords, too.
Get your FREE Headline Writing Checklist here.
6. Email subject lines: A powerful
headline conveys urgency
An email subject line is a headline in disguise. It’s most effective when you include urgency (such as a time limit) and special offers. Email subject lines can top out at 27 to 77 characters, depending on the device used to view them. Subject lines with 35 characters or fewer get the best open rates.
7. Lead magnet opt-ins: A powerful
headline solves a problem
Freebies are everywhere and people love them. I do! But a lead magnet opt-in is not all that unusual anymore. If I’m a reader, what makes me opt-in (“convert” in digital lingo) is a freebie that you really, really want.
You can pull readers when your opt-in headline identifies the pain points of the people in your niche. Choose just one problem your target prospect faces. Let your lead magnet headline address the problem and how your download will solve it.
8. Taglines/subtitles: A powerful
headline identifies your audience
Your tagline is a short (5–10 word), descriptive phrase that offers a specific benefit for a specific audience. Your book’s subtitle identifies the specific reader who will benefit from it. The common thread in both? Audience.
9. Subheads: A powerful headline is
skimmable
Subheads act like miniature headlines in a book, blog post, or article, each introducing a new section of content. They work as a “quick reading” tool, allowing readers to scan, which makes subheads obligatory in today’s skimmable content.
Write a piece of any substantial length, and you must include subheads ... or you run the risk of readers saying, “TLDR” (Too Long, Didn’t Read.) Arrange these mini-headlines as an outline for your article or post, with each one summarizing a benefit of its section’s content.
The quiet benefit of these 9 channel-specific
headlines
A headline tailored to a specific genre or channel acts like a filter. It signals …
- Who the content is for
- What mindset they should be in
- How the information should be delivered
So instead of attracting everyone, you attract the readers who are passionately interested in what you offer in your tweet … your lead magnet … your emails …
It’s easy to breeze through writing a
tweet or a subject line or an article subhead -- just because they’re not called “headlines.”
Don’t miss the chance to connect with those readers. Be the writer who always follows headline-writing protocols that work for different channels.
Do that, and you’ll find even more readers who are looking for exactly what you offer.
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