Spin Up Great Headline Ideas—Fast: 3 Ideas to Help

I want to share a few tips that help my team generate headline ideas, whether they’re feeling particularly inspired… or not. 👇

Specifically, in this article, I’ll be sharing 3 types of tools that combine the best of human insight and robotic efficiency:

1. GPT-3 tools
2. Headline formulas
3. Headline analyzer tools

Do androids dream of electric headings?

If you haven’t spent time playing around with GPT-3 copy generator tools, here’s what you need to know: they lack human empathy. They are nowhere near sophisticated enough to come for our jobs just yet.

What they can do is help kick-start the ideation process when you’re feeling less than creative. Tools like Copysmith and Writesonic help generate copy snippets like title ideas, an introduction, or a basic topic outline. Wordtune is another interesting tool that works by using AI to refine and suggest alternatives for already written copy.

Pro tip: Want to dabble in AI writing tools but aren’t ready to invest in a new monthly subscription? You can often find new GPT-3 tools available for a one-time fee on AppSumo’s lifetime deal software marketplace.

Learn more about GPT-3 AI writing tools and how to incorporate them into your workflow on The Blogsmith blog.

Use heading formulas to generate multiple compelling ideas

So let’s say you start your heading ideation process with GPT-3 tools—it shouldn’t end there.

Armed with a few interesting ideas, it’s time to add back in human empathy. And because sometimes creativity is part art, part science, heading formulas offer a repeatable process for being effective.

Here are three of my favorite headline formulas and some examples to put them into practice:

KISSmetrics’ SHINE heading formula

D. Bnonn Tennant from KISSmetrics originally shared SHINE formula that effectively and concisely communicates the content’s subject. Success happens by catching your reader's attention quickly. Following these five steps can help:

➡️ S—Specificity

➡️ H—Helpfulness

➡️ I—Immediacy

➡️ N—Newsworthiness

➡️ E—Entertainment value

For example: The Latest (immediacy) Research (helpfulness) from the CDC (specificity) about Masks That Work (newsworthiness) (+Tips to Make Your Own) (entertainment value)

Copyhacker’s heading formula

Copyhackers’s Heading Formula is an SEO art.

It grabs the reader's attention by creating a compelling union between your content and something your audience desires. They will be more interested if the headline includes someone they look up to or something they want to achieve.

For example: Make Decisions Like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz without Wasting Business Funds

Unbounce SEO heading formula

Similar to the previous heading formula, if you’re trying to optimize a heading for SEO keywords, Unbounce’s formula can simplify the process.

For example: Fast Loading & User-Friendly WordPress Themes That Will Improve Your Rankings

Put it all together

You’ve combined the computing power of robots with the rich empathy of the human experience to generate several potential heading ideas. There’s one more way robots can help us put our best feet forward:

Headline analyzer tools.

A lot of them do more or less the same things. All of them give pointed suggestions for how to add a final polish to your heading ideas.

Let’s finish up with a few of my favorites and how to use them:

The best headline analyzer tools

• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is The Blogsmith team’s favorite tool because it offers so much value yet is completely free (with an email gate).
• Sharethrough’s Headline Analyzer offers similar metrics and actionable advice for improving titles—with no information or email gate.
• The Advanced Marketing Institute’s Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer takes a slightly different approach, helping you understand how your title comes across from an emotional point of view. It’s free but ad-supported.

Test heading effectiveness with an A/B test

One last tip:

If you’re not sure which heading to choose as your final option, Buffer suggests an A/B test that involves sharing your top title ideas as Twitter tweet copy and then using the one that gets the most engagement and click-through.

Consult Chapter 11 (and 21 other in-depth content style chapters) in my book, Writing for Humans and Robots, for more heading generation and refinement ideas.

Get your copy here and learn more about the book and download the first chapter for free here.