Headlines are the first thing people see from your content. If they’re eye-grabbing and entertaining, readers are more likely to read the rest of the content. However, for your content to be discovered, the headline must first rank well on a search-ending results page (SERP). Simply put, it must be a well-optimized SEO headline.
How can you achieve this? You can hire content marketing agencies to write compelling and SEO-friendly headlines, or you can follow our guide on how to write SEO headlines yourself. We’ll cover what an SEO headline is and wrap up by sharing five tools recommended by our experts to analyze your headlines.
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What Is an SEO Headline?
So, what is an SEO headline? SEO headlines are the first thing you see on your SERP. Usually, the SEO headline matches the HTML <title> tag of an article, so you can see the same title appear at the top of your browser window — the name of that tab.
However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, Google may choose to show the H1 as the SEO headline. Other times, the meta title you see on your SERP won’t be the H1 or the title of the article, but something entirely different.
Header Tags vs Title Tags
It is easy to confuse title tags with headers, particularly H1. Both H1 and title tags communicate the main topic of a page to both readers and search engines. The first communicates the topic on-page, the second in search. Since search engines have a limit on the number of characters they can display in results, title tags provide SEO writers an opportunity to contract their H1 and reformat it for the search environment.
Each content management system has its own "box" that allows the SEO writers to insert their title tags. The most popular of all, WordPress, relies on the Yoast plug-in and it looks like this:
How To Write SEO Headlines
Writing SEO headlines is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is:
1. Do Extensive Keyword Research
The first step in creating SEO-friendly headlines is inserting well-ranking keywords. Do SEO keyword research by using tools like Ahrefs to check which keywords rank better. The best combination is when a keyword has high demand but low volume.
Once you have the word you want to use, add it to your SEO headline. Make sure it’s grammatically correct and brings meaning to the whole headline — there’s no point in just inserting keywords for the sake of having some. Remember: SERPs don’t look favorably on keyword stuffing.
Tip: A general practice with all top marketers and marketing schools is to use several keywords spread through the content not just the SEO headlines.
2. Analyze the SERP
Before you create your SEO headlines, analyze the SERP to know what ranks there and determine the search intent. First, learn how often people use it and what requirements it has, such as the number of characters for your SEO headline.
Second, combine your SERP analysis with the keyword you want to rank for, so you get a rough draft of your SEO headline. Check the SEO headlines that already exist for that keyword and see how you can improve yours to target the audience. Answer questions like:
- Who searches for the topic?
- What do the users want to learn?
- Are they novices or do they already know something about the topic?
3. Be Creative
Once you've done the research, it’s time to focus on crafting your SEO headline. Make sure that it’s not repetitive and make it entertaining. You can add power words like “free,” “professional,” “tested,” etc. These are reel-in words, telling the audience you have something to offer — some insights into the matter or useful information.
Consider writing your SEO headline as a question. It will build up curiosity, as well as make them unique and compelling for your audience.
4. Optimize the Character Count
Finally, the last step is to check the character count of your SEO headlines. Every SERP has a preferred number of characters for your headlines, and if you want to rank well, you’ll have to adhere to their rules.
For example, Google considers 70 characters the best count. Bing, on the other hand, advises a limit of 65 characters.
Once you structure your SEO-friendly headlines according to this final step, you’re ready to publish!
SEO-Friendly Headline Tips
When writing your SEO headlines, always think about your audience, i.e., the people who will read your content. Here are a few tips that will help you create SEO headlines that grab the reader’s attention:
- Get straight to the point: Keep in mind that (most) blogs are not stories or chapters in a novel. Particularly in the B2B space, readers want answers quickly and delivered to them in the simplest format possible. Use your SEO headlines as a promise to your readers — tell them exactly what they can expect to find if they continue to read the section it covers.
- How-To's: BuzzSumo research shows that some of the best-performing articles start with "how to". This is not surprising as users typically turn to search engines to find quick solutions.
- Lead with numbers: Considering how busy people are today, most prefer to see a number in a heading. It basically comes as brain candy — it gives readers something specific and clear so they know what to expect and makes reading easier.
- Incorporate action: Spice up your headlines with a direct and mild demand. In other words, tell people what they should do to get the value of the products or services you offer.
- Use emotion: Incorporate words that evoke emotions in your on-page SEO headlines to receive more clicks and shares. Words like “amazing”, “fast” or “now” impact readers and make them act.
- Announce exciting news: Make your headlines intriguing by incorporating a little bit of excitement. Introduce something new that will get the most out of what you offer and make it click.
- Employ FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): Use words like “limited offer”, “don’t miss out” or “limited-time savings” to trigger a strong emotion in your readers and get them to click your headline.
No matter which way you create your headlines, make sure you always provide your audience with value. Otherwise, they won’t mean anything to them and will not consider clicking.
SEO Headline Analysis Tools
Using a set of on-page SEO tools like headline analyzers can help you generate the perfect titles for your content. Here are the top five you should consider in 2025:
1. CoSchedule's Headline Analyzer Improves Your SEO Headlines
Headline Analyzer is an excellent tool for checking your SEO headlines. A good part of the digital marketing community, including digital marketing agencies, is a fan of this on-page SEO tool, using it to analyze their headlines and improve them.
To try it out, simply put your headline in the analyzer and you will instantly get the analysis of the overall structure, grammar, and reliability, as well as suggestions on how to improve them. What’s more, in addition to providing you with a headline score, CoSchedule also shows you the email subject line and Google search preview of your title.
2. Capitalize My Title Headline Analyzer Has an Overall Score System
Capitalize My Title is not just a tool used to help businesses and marketers capitalize their articles correctly according to different styles. It also has a headline analyzer tool that aids in writing better headlines.
All you need to do is enter the search line headline and see the results. You can also ask the tool to capitalize it correctly. Once you click “Analyze” it gives you the overall score of your headlines SEO. Aside from that, you can see how well it would do in readability, SEO, and sentiment, detailing each section and telling you how you can improve them so it would influence the overall score.
3. Answer The Public Helps You Create Question SEO Headlines
Answer The Public is a tool that combines suggested searches from Google and Bing. You simply enter a keyword and get well-organized results in several categories including what, why, where, and how. These are the questions people search for on these two SERPs from different devices.
4. Portent Allows You To Generate Different Topic Ideas
Portent is another amazing title generator tool to incorporate into your SEO content strategy. To use it, enter a subject or keyword and click submit. Then, it will provide you with a title variety option.
However, this tool displays only one option at a time. By clicking the refresh button, you can get new ideas. What’s great about this tool is that you can make your own changes to the headlines to meet your SEO content writing needs.
5. Sharethrough Measures the Effectiveness of Your Headline
Sharethrough allows you to discover how effective the headlines you create are. Simply put together a title and put it in this analyzer. Then, you will get a short report on its quality score. It also shows the strengths and weaknesses and provides suggestions for improvements.
Overall, it is a great tool to use in your eCommerce SEO content strategy to make sure your titles are appealing to your readership.
SEO Headlines Takeaways
SEO headlines are much more than vessels for keywords. They:
- Pull your readers in, helping them decide whether to click on your post to begin with
- Help your readers find their answers quickly
- Make your content more skimmable and easier to consume
- Help increase the average session duration — an important mark of quality for search engines
By overlooking these benefits quality headlines provide, SEOs often walk the dangerous path of treating them exclusively as an opportunity for keyword stuffing. We say "dangerous" because going overboard with this technique can earn penalties on Google.
To truly optimize your SEO headlines, focus on what your users expect to gain from your content, as well as on their reading habits. Follow the research-backed best practices such as leading with numbers, how-tos, and active verbs, and use the available tools for topic planning, as well as to analyze your headline options.
And don't forget — you can always go for an agency providing affordable SEO services for small businesses or hire one of the full-service digital marketing agencies to help you out in this regard.
Best of luck!
