We all know the importance of a powerful headline. However, writing a great headline isn’t as easy as it sounds.
An effective headline will literally force your potential customers to learn more. It will instantly ignite a certain emotion and intrigue them to read on.

In order to write an effective headline, you must learn how to use specific words to achieve a specific reaction.

Before writing your headline, you must first learn a little bit about the basic human motivators. According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, human behavior is always the result of one or more of five basic needs. He listed these needs in a sequence that he refers to as “the hierarchy of human needs.”

He believes that until a less important need is met there won’t be any desire to pursue a more important need. Below are the five human motivators, beginning with the basic needs and continuing to the most important needs.

Physiological - Basic human needs include hunger, thirst, shelter, clothing and sex.
Safety (Security) - Human need for physical, emotional and financial security.
Social (Affiliation) - Human need for love, affection, companionship and acceptance.
Esteem (Self Esteem) - Human need for achievement, recognition, attention and respect.
Self-actualization - Human need to reach their full potential.

When you are aware of the basic human needs, you can incorporate these needs into your writing. A great headline will appeal to your potential customers’ emotions. You must feel their needs, wants and desires and write your headlines with passion and emotion.

When writing your headlines, keep in mind, you only have a few seconds to grab your potential customers’ attention. If your headline doesn’t immediately catch their attention, they’ll simply move on and never return. Below are several different formulas used by professional copywriters to write compelling headlines.

How to

“How to Increase Your Sales Up to 500% by Using This One Simple Strategy”

Headlines beginning with ‘how to’ are very successful, as the Internet is all about information. Internet users have a strong desire to learn. A headline beginning with ‘how to’ immediately grabs your potential customers’ attention and forces them to read on.

Question

“Are You Sick and Tired of Working For Someone Else?”

Headlines written in the form of a question are very effective, as they appeal to your potential customers’ emotions. When they read a headline written as a question, they’ll answer the question in their mind. If the question identifies a specific need, want or desire, they’ll read on.

Command

“Double Your Income Within the Next 12 months –Guaranteed!”

A command headline focuses on the most important benefit your product or service has to offer. It instantly demands your potential customers’ attention and intrigues them to read on.

News

“Announcing a Brand New Breakthrough in E-Publishing”

News headlines are very effective and used to announce new products and services. They are written in the form of an announcement or introduction and create curiosity.

Testimonials

“Internet Marketing Exclusive is Pure Genius — Our Sales Have Increased by 40%!”

Headlines written in the form of a testimonial are very effective, as they instantly begin building trust.

When writing your headlines, certain words, when combined together, will literally draw your readers’ attention to your ad. Below are of few of these “Power Words” that consistently work.

Breakthrough
Discover
Discovery
Easy
Free
Guaranteed
Hidden
Incredible
Love
Master
Money
New
Powerful
Profits
Proven
Results
Revealed
Scientific
Secret
Shocked
Shocking
Ultimate
Uncovered
You
Your

According to a Yale University study, the following words are the most powerful words in the English language.

Money
Discovery
Save
Easy
New
Love
Health
Proven
You
Results
Guaranteed
Safety

Just as certain words ignite different emotions, certain subjects have a broader interest than others do. Some of the most popular subjects include wealth, love, health and safety.

Take your time and try the different formulas according to your needs. Use a combination of the power words and write a headline that sells. By learning the art of writing headlines that focus on the basic human needs and emotions, you can increase your sales considerably.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com

Article source:

Silentblast Toronto web design Company

It used to be that the idea of a website was to somehow impress our clients and give them the big “song and dance” show. I’m sure you all remember and some of you actually still think that Flash intros are awsome. Ya, ok. SKIP… We then somehow turned to this chaotic world of “over the top” information overload called way too much content. You see, we still have to somehow empower our brand, capture our audience and ultimately do one thing. We need to get client/prospect to contact us right? I’m sure that most of you readers are either selling widgets or services and the idea of selling clients acorss your product line, cross sell and upsell sounds great right? Well, this sounds more like an assembly line than a branding strategy. Your customers are people not widgets.

Your customers are real people, with real problems and your proposed product or solution is going to help them, stop thinking like an assembly line and perhaps the customer will stop rebelling. People have stopped paying attention to ads. I think if the stage is set right, you can get people to tune back in. It has to do with a little magic called strategic branding and innovative customer experiences. If you can make poeple’s lives easier, better or richer. You win. They win.

Your website should not be just another channel for polished messages, but rather a place to engage people. We see everyday sites that go on forever about this and that, and really the end user is just skimming and looking for those valuable key points. More….to come….

The anti-IE6 squad seems to have been gathering some momentum lately; 37Signals announced that they are phasing out support of the aged web browser, as well as Facebook and MobileMe. Even a website has been constructed, IE Death March, to revolt against the web browser and highlight websites that no longer support it.

Of course from a developers point of view, IE6 has been nothing more than a sheer nightmare for coding. While most of us are using modern day browsers like Firefox and even IE7 and I mean why shouldn’t we? These new browsers are in my opinion faster, have more features and for the most part safer than this old clunker called ie6. There lots of problems with ie6, too many to mention in this post, although I think users should have a choice. However I do encourage everyone I speak too about the modern day browsers to at least give them a chance.  People must know that there are coders, designers and web developers out there having to deal with issues that these so called browsers have and the limitations and threats they have.

Microsoft will soon release the beast called IE8 to the masses soon, what will it bring? What new issues or what new problems will it solve? Who knows, all I know is at least they are all at least have some form of understanding for web standards and that is good. As for me, well it’s still IE7, but Firefox is growing on me.

Yes, it’s true the new Google Browser is here and available as a BETA download to the public. My first impression…Not bad, I see a bright future for this thing. Watch out Microsoft, Google is on the war path now. As far as comments go, not much for now. I’d like to play with it and see how using it feels like. You can download it here: http://www.google.com/chrome

As a website owner, I’m sure by now you must know whether or not your website is doing it’s job. Make no mistake here, it has a job. Now, either you’re in business or simply have something to say and really want people or customers to get to this website of yours right? Let’s face it folks, you need to impress and capture your market. I really don’t think a template will cut it. Of course if your budget is not there, well I suppose you have no choice, but do you? We believe that a website just like anything is an investment. Treat it well, invest in it and it will reward you. Simply put it’s unreal how many websites are over 10 years old now. 

Today’s internet users are savier, smarter and still want to enjoy themselves on your site. I don’t want to get started on the fact that Search engine optimization is important here, but let’s be real for a moment, it’s poeple that will make the decision to call you and as people, you need to still impress and capture their attention. So, bottom line, if your site is not generating any leads there’s something wrong, either the site is not designed properly to capture the audience, or it’s not getting the right traffic. It may be time for a makeover.

Hello and welcome to the “blastblog” our little corner of the web where we rant and rave. Our goal this year is to start using this wonderful system which of course we preach about to our awsome clients. So we’re keeping this short and sweet. Please book mark us as this will be one blog you won’t want to miss.!