Triple Your Clicks And Views With The “Headline-First” Content Strategy

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Triple Your Clicks And Views With The “Headline-First” Content Strategy

You have 7 seconds to grab your audience’s attention.

Or is it 3 seconds?

Honestly, I hear so many variations of that attention-grabbing piece of data it’s hard to know what to believe.

Ultimately, you don’t have long and your audience is looking for any excuse to scroll right past.

The job of a good headline is to make it impossible for them to do so.

Here’s the problem:

Headlines are usually an afterthought, written in the last 45 seconds before you click publish.

The usual order of events:

Come Up With The Idea → Create The Content → Write The Headline

Makes sense, but what if you were to flip it?

Come Up With The Idea → Write The Headline → Create The Content

It may sound odd, but a “headline-first” content strategy has been used by viral content creators for years.

Yep, including MrBeast.

But I’d go a step further and say it should be used in most types of content - “viral” or otherwise.

Here’s Why The Headline-First Strategy Works So Well:

This usually happens without you even realizing it.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you’re a US travel content creator.

Idea: You’re visiting the Pacific Northwest and you want to share the hot spots in an ultimate guide.

Content: You create a detailed piece of content covering a secluded waterfall in Oregon, a quaint town in Washington, a hiking trail in Idaho, and more.

Headline: “Top Spots In The Pacific Northwest You Have To Visit”

Not bad, but let’s see what happens when you apply a “headline-first” approach.

This time, you consider what the eventual headline would be before you start creating the content.

You consider your audience’s psychology and what would make them click on a piece of content.

Let’s sprinkle a few cognitive biases over this headline.

I’ve picked these at random:

• Exclusivity - Make the audience feel as though they’re receiving insider secrets or are part of an elite group.

• Concreteness - Give specific numbers so the audience knows exactly what to expect from the content.

• Urgency - Let them know the benefit you’re offering won’t last forever.

Now and only now do you go and create the content.

You know:

• How many places to cover.

• To only cover “hidden gems” that most people won’t already know about.

It keeps you focused.

Plus, the content you’re creating will end up being more interesting.

Why?

Because so many creators (myself included) fall into the trap of writing for themselves and not for their audience.

Writing the headline first forces you to ask yourself what your audience would actually care about before creating the content.

Your 3-Step Actionable Summary:

1. Try Starting With The Headline: Once you’ve got an idea, craft a compelling, psychology-driven headline first.

2. Create Content To Match The Headline’s Promise: It’ll ensure your content is interesting, relevant to your audience’s desires, and focused.

3. Evaluate And Adjust: By monitoring the click-through rate of your headlines, you’ll get a deeper understanding of which psychological triggers are most important to your audience.

Whenever You’re Ready:

There are two very specific ways I can help you.

Headline Magic: If you want more views, this course reveals the dead-simple, psychology-driven headline tricks pro content creators use to get their content millions of clicks.

Email Subject Line Cheat Sheet: 21 psychology-driven email subject line tricks to boost your open rate. Learn the secrets behind this newsletter’s 52% open rate.

🐰 rabbit holes and resources

🍫 Today’s link candy for content creators:

• What he’s learned from $3,394,480 in Digital Course Sales [link]

• Why every creator should have a newsletter — interview with an 8-figure newsletter operator [link]