Back when I studied poetry at university, I learned that great writing isn’t about saying more — it’s about saying what matters, clearly and with precision. Every word, every punctuation mark, must fight for its place.

Later, when I ventured into marketing, the stakes grew even higher. A hint of flowery language? Cut. Extra words? Gone. A headline wasn’t an introduction… it was a whole pitch compressed into one sentence.

David Ogilvy once said, “When you write your headline, you have spent eighty cents of your (advertising) dollar.” In this article, we’ll put those eighty cents work — pulling from psychology, publishing, and poetry to craft headlines that grab attention and hold it.

1. Appeal to your audience’s psychological motivators

Before engaging with a headline, we begin asking a series of internal questions.

These questions are triggered from

Personal gain: What’s in it for me?
Status: How will this make me look if I share this?
Curiosity and FOMO: What if I don’t take action or learn more about this?
Identity: Does this align with who I am?
Easy wins: Could this help me overcome a challenge I have?

But hooky formulas and tapping into easy triggers aren’t enough alone. The key is to appeal to psychological motivators that you know about your target audience.

Hooks grab attention, especially if you're writing without a specific audience in mind. But the strongest headlines aren’t just catchy… they’re relevant. A truly compelling headline speaks directly to your ideal reader. Always remember: you’re writing to one person — the one engaging with your content — not an audience the size of a football stadium.

Way before you start writing a headline (in fact, before you start creating the content), you should conduct research on the target audience, with questions like:

Who are they? What role do they have? What is their seniority level? What is their current state and their desired state? What frustrates them? What should they do after they read or engage with your content?

*Understanding audience is step 1. Content brief credit: Fio from* *Contentfolks*.

For example, I know this article is for junior content writers or copywriters. Or, for more experienced heads looking to learn something new or novel (hence the mention of Psychology, Publishing, and Poetry, but we’ll get to that).

2. Make a promise and deliver on it

Every content piece should aim to educate, entertain, inspire, or inform readers. This promise begins with your headline and does not end until the final sentence.

Let me explain:

We’ve all experienced clickbait; drawn in by a sensationalist headline that twists the facts, misquotes the original content, and makes you feel cheated. The media industry lives off these headlines and hides much of the most important context under a paywall. For B2B brands, writing a headline that breaks a promise can damage your brand.

We can write engaging headlines without resorting to such tactics. But we must live up to the promise we set. To remember this, let’s consider Chekhov’s Gun.

Anton Chekhov was a Russian playwright whose famous quote on storytelling can be applied to headline writing:

So if you write in your headline that you will share 7 principles, stick to 7 principles. If you write that these ideas come from top writers, then quote top writers. Each heading in your article should, too, make a promise it later keeps.

Give your audience a reason to click, then reward them with the value they came for.

3. Open the curiosity gap with questions, emotions, stories, and bold statements

A curiosity gap is the space between the information we receive and the information that has purposefully been held back from us.

This is a powerful principle used by all of your favorite TV shows. Cliffhangers leave you craving the next episode or waiting impatiently for the following season. It’s why so many shows get to create a next season, even if the story has run dry (looking at you, Prison Break).

But how do you open similar curiosity gaps in your headlines? In the book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, Ian Leslie writes that there are two types of curiosity we can appeal to:

📰🗣 Diversive curiosity: “the restless desire for the new and the next.” Think gossip and impulsive information.
🧠📕 Epistemic curiosity: “the quest for knowledge and understanding.” Think curiosity that nourishes, leaving us informed or inspired.

Out of these, which curiosity gap do you want to open? There’s no right or wrong, and you can switch it up depending on the content.

There are many techniques to take this principle further and drive readers to follow their curiosity. Let’s take a look at examples from a publisher notorious for this type of click-worthy headline, Buzzfeed:

Ask (or trigger) a question: The 97th Academy Awards Are Less Than A Month Away – Who Will Take Home An Oscar This Year?
Appeal to emotions: 18 Roles Actors Rejected For Weird, Wild, Or Wholesome Reasons
Start with the opening line: My Parents’ Obsession With Purity Nearly Ruined Us. Years Later, I Found Their Secret In A Box Of Their Things.
Make a bold statement: Your Taste Buds Will Totally Reveal Your Main Love Language

Ask yourself: what gap does your audience need to fill for their health, wealth, or happiness? And how can your content help fill it?

4. Meet the craving for novelty with a twist on the subject

It’s no coincidence that ‘Newsworthy’ has the word ‘New’ in it. We’re innately wired to seek out novelty. The craving for newness isn’t just the brain calling for dopamine — it’s a survival instinct.

When our prehistoric loincloth-wearing ancestors saw something approaching over the hills, they were spurred into action, scratching their heads, whooping, and howling. More often than not they’d think three things: Can I eat it? Can I mate with it? Or should I defend my territory or flee from it?

Those who paid attention and adapted were more likely to pass on their genes. We’ve come a long way, but still have much in common biologically. So when our brain runs on patterns, and something disrupts this pattern, we pay attention.

Think about how this works with your headline: what can I write that’s new or novel? Can you…

Use an old idea in a new or novel way? Example above: Chekhov’s Gun
Coin a concept by borrowing from existing ones? Example: Spiky Point of View
Give a fresh and surprising perspective on a commonly held belief? Example: Copycat Content

Many news headlines use power words to give the impression that the content is must-know. Inspired by what grabs your attention online, you can build a word bank that suits your brand voice.

Power words can command attention, but use them wisely—overdo it, and you’re writing clickbait, not credible.

*Some of the personal power words phrases I’ve collected from media sites.*

5. Write as many headlines as you can, then sleep on it

Ed Sheeran worked hard to become a star. And we can use his persistent creative process to inspire our headline writing.

Sheeran insists his creative process starts with “letting a dirty tap run”. At first, crappy water will inevitably pour out. Eventually, the water becomes clean and you can drink it.

The meaning of his metaphor? You need to keep writing, keep creating, and keep making mistakes. You will write crap. And then with enough repetition, something great will come.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy agrees, as he tried to write 20 alternative headlines for every ad he made. You might considering testing them in different styles:

Alliterative
Contrarian
Conversational
A question
A ‘how to’
A ‘how I’
Listicle
Data-driven
Based on existing ideas
Negative framing (what to avoid)

Don’t be proud, either… ask ChatGPT for alternatives. Then combine the parts that work until you have a shortlist. Consult the mattress and return the next day with fresh eyes. You can even ask your peers for theirs.

A few small tweaks after that, and voilà: a headline that stands out, that’s clickable, that speaks to the audience. But yes, you’ll have had to wade through crap to get to it.

6. Say more with less by killing common filler words

In poetry and writing classes you are taught to kill your darlings. Even if you love a phrase or word, if it doesn’t serve the whole piece, remove it.

Often you can spot these unnecessary phrases when reading a sentence aloud. If it’s clogging up your flow, then it’s more often than not superfluous.

In your headlines, the stakes are higher. You have even fewer words to capture attention than a poem. The reasons to remove these filler words are both

Psychological: Readers should be able to quickly skim and understand the context, content, and the ‘promise made’.
Practical: Headlines for SEO title tags have a 60-character limit. The recommendation for email subject lines is no more than 50 characters. LinkedIn posts get truncated after 210 characters.

Usually, there a few culprit filler words, such as:

That: “7 Secrets That Will Help You Write Better Headlines” → “7 Secrets to Writing Better Headlines”
Will: “How This Trick Will Improve Your Writing” → “How This Trick Improves Your Writing”
Really: “How to Write Really Good Headlines” → “How to Write Great Headlines”
Very: “The Very Best Copywriting Tricks” → “The Best Copywriting Tricks”
Just: “Why You Should Just Focus on One Writing Rule” → “Why You Should Focus on One Writing Rule”
Actually: “What You Actually Need to Know About Headlines” → “What You Need to Know About Headlines”
Be Able to: “How to Be Able to Write Better Headlines” → “How to Write Better Headlines”

Don’t forget — your headlines compete against hundreds of others in your audience’s inbox, search engine results pages, or social feeds. Though short headlines get to the point, unusual headlines that speak to an audience’s motivations are more likely to stand out.

So make it short, make it sharp, but above all, make it impossible to ignore.

Great headlines don’t just hook

We’ve learned that a great headline isn’t just about grabbing attention. It’s about holding up your end of the bargain, understanding your readers and opening a curiosity gap for them, being concise, and offering something new.

The best headlines don’t just drive curiosity. They create conversation, build authority, and make people wonder what you’ll write next.

Write headlines that hook: 6 principles from psychology, publishing, and poetry