How do you ensure that your website features at the top of search engine results pages? Having a great website with relevant content and well-placed keywords is a good way. That will improve the chances of a visitor coming to your website. And advertising headlines can really help with it.
You go ahead and create a paid advertising campaign. Here you would pay per click (PPC) on your website or landing page. Such ads are usually in the form of a banner or a popup. They keep viewer interest for a few seconds only. So you must make every word and character in that count so that the viewer acts on it. We have prepared for you the best advertising headlines.
Tips to Remember While Writing PPC Ad Headlines
Let us look at the following 14 tips to understand how to best draft the ad headlines
1. Forget Selling:
Your headline should not speak about your brilliant product only. It should focus on fulfilling a need of the visitor or solving a problem he is facing. Only then will it resonate with the viewer.
He will read the rest of the copy, and then go on to click on your landing page or website. Once he is there, you will get enough opportunities to extol the virtues of your product.
2. Provide Information:
Avoid generic advertising headlines. Examples would be ‘We are the best’ or ‘we are the cheapest’. Try saying ‘1.2 million copies sold already’ or ‘Pay only $10.95’ instead. The visitor will find hard data much more credible.
3. Empathize:
Put yourself in the same boat as the prospective client whose problem you want to solve. That will make the ad more effective. A condescending ad headline will most likely turn off the visitor at the initial stage itself. That will make it almost impossible to take him to the landing page.
4. Avoid Jargon:
It can get very tempting to throw technical terms and industry jargon to impress your viewer. The reality is that if the language is opaque, then you are likely to lose him quickly. Use simple language in both your ad copy as well as the headline.
5. Follow Trends Wisely in Headline:
It might not be a good idea to chop and change to incorporate the trending buzzwords. But for a short-term PPC ad, it is often useful to see the latest trending hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook and use some of them in your ad headlines while those are still trending.
6. Include Keywords:
Even if yours is a paid ad, you need to remember that it will be shown up only on a search results page. Ad headlines should contain some or all the keywords that the visitor has searched for. Only then will he be interested in clicking the ad.
7. Provide Answers:
A visitor searching for a particular product or service is probably looking for some solutions to his problems. If your headline mirrors that question at least partially, then you have a greater likelihood of attracting his attention.
Ad headlines like ‘Want to get better returns?’ or ‘Worried by hair fall?’ in question form will be more likely to resonate and get clicks.
8. Add Humor:
In this jungle of pop up and other ads, your ad needs everything it can to help it stand out among the others. Don’t overdo it, though, if you are not sure about the quality of the humor.
9. Be Honest:
PPC ads carry the same risk that regular advertisements do – of getting carried away and making bogus or inflated claims. Remember the final objective of your PPC ad is to sell, not just to get clicks.
And if one buyer finds your claim wrong, the negative word-of-mouth will overshadow all the clicks you get.
10. Highlight Benefits:
Your message shouldn’t be about your product or service but about what is in it for the prospective buyer. Let your headline focus completely on the visitor.
11. Highlight Freebies:
You have very little time and space to convey your messaging in a PPC ad. So using things that catch the eye of the visitor is a smart move.
If you are offering free shipping, or 3 years warranty, or cash backs on credit cards, then try incorporating that where possible. Product features can come later.
12. Keep Track Of Competition:
Whether or not your competitors are using PPC advertising, it always helps to keep them in your line of sight.
The copy they are using in different advertising media, the offers they have, the product features they are introducing, all of these will help to make your own advertising more effective.
13. Mind the Copy:
This piece of advice shouldn’t have made it to this list, because it sounds like basic hygiene. But the large number of PPC ads you see with basic spelling or grammatical mistakes should make you wary. It might escape the notice of the viewer if you are lucky.
But if he does notice the errors, then your viewers might find it difficult to believe your ad.
14. Crisp Offerings:
A PPC ad by nature is something that gets only a few sentences and a few seconds in the visitor’s vision and mind space. So you should avoid the reams of product features that you would normally employ in a traditional ad. Use crisp sentences, bullet points and number listicles to highlight the benefits you are offering.
More tips about advertising headlines you can read on Forbes.
Conclusion: Advertising headlines
Writing great advertising copy used to be an art, but those skills might not come in handy while creating advertising headlines. So it’s important to keep the above tips in mind while creating your advertisement to make it more effective.
In case you need not only a headline, but also some inspiration for your article, read about topic generators.
