5 ways to write eye-catching headlines 👀 [for SaaS websites]

In website copywriting – the beginning is the most important.

When your customer lands on your website for the first time, they don’t know where they are. 

It’s similar when you travel to a city you’ve never visited before. Everything seems strange, unknown and intimidating… You don’t know how to catch a bus, where the good coffee shops are and where you shouldn’t walk alone in the evening. If only you had someone to show you around…

Treat your website as a city guide for your user. A good city guide will give you the most important information about your surroundings right from the start. 

A bad one, however, will show you some unimportant monuments and tell you all about the city water pipeline scandal from 5 years ago.

Working on headlines for your website or a blog - you get to choose which guide you’ll become. 

Luckily, doing so does not require a lot of effort from your side. I've prepared for you 5 easy tips on writing headlines that you can implement right away.

 

What will you gain after improving headlines on your website?

Did you know that 8 out of 10 people read ONLY headlines?

Now, let's imagine your website's monthly traffic is 1000 users. Only 200 of them will actually read the copy on your website.

800 will skim through the page and if those weak-ass headlines will not catch their eyes: they will probably quickly exit your website and forget about it altogether.

Now, that's unfortunate. So, you better make sure to polish those H1s and H2s to reach more people with your product.

 

Speaking of reaching more people... Writing a good headline can bring a MASSIVE change to your website traffic.

How massive?

We're talking big numbers, like 500% growth of traffic.

Crazy, right?

 

So: TAKE CARE OF THOSE HEADLINES

 

How? Let's see...

 

#1 State your purpose and the targeted audience

 

It’s especially important for the H1 on your main page. Too many times I saw those biggest, boldest headlines convey… absolutely nothing about the product!

Look how Upgrow is doing it:

 

Right from the start, you know their unique selling proposition ("High Growth") and what is their exact niche ("Digital marketing"). Beautiful! 👏

 

How can we apply it to your content? Instead of this:

 

Helping companies grow

 

Aim for something like this:

 

Helping B2B SaaS acquire more leads with interactive content

 

As you can see – the second example is highly specific and presents a real value for a customer. All in one short sentence.

With that info, the customer can now decide if your website is for them. If it’s not – they won’t waste their time trying to find it out. You won’t make them frustrated, leave and never come back. And who knows — maybe, one day, they will actually need your product!

 

#2 Provide specific data

We love to see percentages and numbers in content.

Hell, you may have visited this blog just because I used the number 5 in the title ;) 

It also applies to making headlines on your website. If you have some interesting numbers about your product to use – use them in the headlines! It will build more trust for your message and help your audience imagine the real benefits of using your product.

Check this example taken from the Ghost website:

 

 

So, let’s turn this:

 

Our tool helps you stay productive

 

Into this:

 

Our tool will increase your productivity by 79%.

 

Of course – don’t ever fabricate those numbers (as I did in the example above 😁). You have to have hard proofs to back up the numbers. Otherwise, you risk losing the trust of your customers – and that’s a SaaS owner’s biggest nightmare! 

 

#3 Address the problem your customers have

 

Don’t make your customer guess what your product is about! Begin telling the story about your customer’s challenges and goals right from the very beginning!

 

Change this:

 

We make financial management easier.

 

Into this:

 

We make small business expense tracking a piece of cake.

 

Financial management is too general – most of us need to (or at least ought to) manage our finances. By specifying the niche (small businesses) and the challenge (keeping track of the cash flow in the company) we have a greater chance to hook the audience with a heading.

 

#4 Shock them!

A good headline is attention-grabbing! 3 of many ways to turn a dull headline into one that will make your customers 🤯 is:

 

I. Take one widely accepted truth and question it:

Why does learning math at school won’t make you a better problem-solver?

 

II. Use a controversial statement:

SMART goal are over 🙈

Long live SMART goals - but better 👇

(shoutout to @agilescaleup for the new, more accurate imho definition of SMART goals! 😍)

— Kuba | Content Marketing for SaaS (@storyangled) July 27, 2022

 

III. Use strong emotional language:

Payroll month making you INSANE?!

 

Look at this brilliant example from butter.us:

 

 

However – be careful not to overdo it. There’s a fine line between making your headline controversial and straight-up absurd. To make sure you haven’t crossed it – test your headline on a few people and ask them about their first impression of it!

 

#5 Be witty!

Some intelligent humour can help you gain the trust and sympathy of your audience. While working on your website copy, find opportunities to include some eye-catching, funny headlines along the way. It makes the entire copy light and pleasant to read. 

What can you use to make your headlines funnier?

 

• Idioms: Time is money – and your time’s under control
  
  
• Puns: Time-bending time tracking
  
  
• Pop culture references: Time goes by… so slowly…
  
  
• Illustrative metaphors: Snooze the old clock – we’ve got something better!

 

A very good example from Apple - the company with probably the most impressive copywriting on the planet Earth (and further):

 

 

Spark up your creativity and be brave about your copy! It will blow some steam off of all the marketing/selling BS and make your brand seem more human.

 

Good headlines make stuff easier

Remember — nobody has time to carefully read everything you include on your website. Do you remember the last time you read a web page from top to bottom? Me neither. We usually skim through the content, looking for the most valuable information.

Keeping this harsh truth in mind will help you structure the content on your website. Put the most significant info right in front of the audience’s eyes. Use headlines as a tool to tell your customer: “yes, baby — I’m exactly what you need!”. It will make your copywriting pleasant to read, and (most importantly) more efficient to generate quality leads!