Engineering Copywriter Blog

Content marketing tips and insights to help grow your engineering audience

December 5, 2024

4 Tips On Writing Great Headlines For Your Engineering Articles

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Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

What’s the first thing you see when you scan or search for an article?

The headline or title, of course!

This puts a lot of pressure on writing the perfect headline. The heading needs to give you an idea of what you’re in for but it also needs to be enticing enough to make you want to click over and read the whole article.

After all, we usually decide whether or not we’ll go on to read the content depending on the headline. We may be taught not to judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to articles, we definitely do judge by the headline.

This means headlines are incredibly powerful, and they can be the make or break when it comes to how well your engineering blogs or articles perform.

So let me share four top tips that can help you write fantastic headlines.

1. Start with a rough draft

You’ve probably heard of the popular saying that writing is actually just re-writing. The first draft is always shoddy, but we build up from that through constant rewrites.

I’ve certainly found this to be true in my writing, and if you’ve already spent a significant amount of time on your engineering blog, chances are, you have too.

But this isn’t only true for articles at large – it’s also true for something as seemingly insignificant as a headline.

start with a rough draft when writing great headlines
Image Source: Grammarly

So always start with a rough draft of your headline. It should be more specific than your general topic, and will give you the direction your writing will take. This working title is important to guide your thoughts and keep you on track.

For example, say you want to write something on the topic of “Data Engineering”. The next step would be to come up with a headline that will help you focus your writing.

You could look at any of the following:

  1. What is Data Engineering?
  2. 5 Tips to Help you Find a Job as a Data Engineer
  3. 3 Reasons Why Data Engineering is Important in the Modern World

These are all related to data engineering, but each topic is very different. If you start with a title like that, you have something that will guide your blog post and article.

AI tools can really help with this if you’re stuck. While I wouldn’t recommend using AI to write your entire article, especially in a field as complex as engineering, it can be a great source of inspiration.

2. Stick to the facts

Since engineering blogs present non-fiction, accuracy is important. This also means that your headline should be an accurate reflection of the content of the article.

Many online sites have developed the habit of creating clickbait headlines, i.e. headlines that pique a reader’s interest but don’t accurately reflect the subject matter of the article.

This is a no-go for engineering blogs.

sticking to facts make for writing great headlines
Image Source: DEV

Make sure you don’t make any untrue claims in your headline or set your reader up for disappointment. If you do, you’ll quickly lose their trust and respect, which will work against what you’re trying to achieve with your engineering blog. In fact, this will lead to high bounce rates, a Google ranking factor, which could negatively affect your overall website traffic.

To make your headline a tad more exciting while still presenting facts, you could use bracketed explanations or offer a specific number or piece of data.

For example:

  1. The Evolution of Self-driving Cars [Infographic]
  2. Quantum Computing: How To Increase Computational Speed by 50%

The bracketed text aims to add more specificity. So in the first example above, your readers will know that your article is not only about the evolution of self-driving cars, but also that you’ll be presenting this information in an infographic. And in the second example, your readers will know that you’re not only talking about increasing computational speed, but that you’re specifically focusing on a 50% increase.

Of course, your actual content will still need to reflect this, so if you’re adding it into your headline, it has to be true for your article.

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3. Add some finesse

No one likes a boring headline. So once you’ve started working with a rough outline and have your facts ready, you can begin to have some fun with your headline to make it more exciting and draw a reader in.

Here are my favorite tricks to use:

  1. Using alliterations: I enjoy a good alliteration, and they can really add a special touch to your headline. (Example: Tech-Driven Transformation: Tackling Tomorrow’s Challenges Today)
  2. Using strong or emotive words: These can really make an impact, though I would suggest using them in moderation. (Example: The Most Hated Engineering Jobs, or, as contrast, The Best Engineering Jobs)
  3. Adding a visual component: If your text has a large visual component, it’ll make sense to tease this in your headline as people are often attracted to visuals. (Example: 5 Photos of the Most Catastrophic Sinkholes)
  4. Using numbers: I’ve teased this above, but adding numbers is really helpful, regardless of whether you’re depicting a factual number or simply illustrating the number of points you’ll be discussing. (Example: 6 Essential Steps for Implementing AI in Engineering Projects

By adding some more playful bits, you can make your headline more exciting and increase the likelihood of a potential reader clicking through.

4. Keeping it short

Even though it may be fun to go crazy with your headlines, it’s a good idea to keep them shorter rather than longer.

This is especially true on the internet, since your headline doubles (or should double) as your meta title, an important part of SEO basics that will be shown in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). If your headline is too long, it’ll be cut off and potential readers will only see a part of it, decreasing the power of your headline.

Try to keep your headline between 50 – 60 characters if you’re using it as your title tag so that your post appears well in searches.

And even if you’re aiming on using a different title tag, it’s been shown that shorter headings do better. There is some debate on just how many words you should be including, but most research is pointing towards 6 to 14 words.

Crafting a headline that fits into a certain character or word count can be difficult and you may need to experiment a bit.

Sometimes, the trick is simply to rephrase your heading, but other times you may need to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. AI can also assist if you’re stuck, though I’d certainly recommend taking AI-generated ideas with a pinch of salt.

writing great headlines infographic

Are you ready to write killer headlines?

If you need any help writing engineering articles with fantastic headlines, contact me today – I can help!

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Writing Great Headlines FAQs

Does my headline need to include keywords?

If you’re writing for the internet, then, yes, your headline should include keywords. But you’ll find that this tends to happen naturally, since the focus of your article will be your focus keyword, and it’ll always make sense to include that.

Should my headline always be positive?

Your headline doesn’t necessarily have to be positive, but if you’re trying to entice a potential reader to click over, it’ll make sense to highlight what they’ll get from your article. If you’re offering a certain benefit or outcome, it’s a good idea to include that in your heading.

Can I test different headlines?

If you’re set up for A/B testing, you can take your experiments to the next level and assess how well your article performs if you’re using different headlines. If you’re not set up for A/B testing, you can try to do this manually by collecting data on click-throughs for both sets of headlines, but data may be skewed.

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