13 Insane Hacks to Write Great Headlines with ChatGPT

Do you want to learn how to write great headlines with ChatGPT? Welcome, this guide is for you.

When people encounter your blog posts for the first time, the headline is often the first thing that gets their attention. A good headline can get people to click through and read your content, while a bad headline can make people ignore it.

It is, however, not easy to write good headlines that make people click and also deliver at the same time. Well, not anymore. ChatGPT can help. 

Powered by the largest language model GPT-4, ChatGPT is well-equipped to help you craft perfect headlines that grab people’s attention.

In this detailed guide, I will explain how you can use ChatGPT to write great headlines for your blog posts. Whether you are a blogger, marketer, or content creator, the tips outlined in this article will surely help you get more visitors and increase your conversions. 

Why are great headlines important?

In an age where the attention span of an average internet user is just 8 seconds, the headline is your chance to convince your reader that this article has what he wants.

If your headline is dry and unevocative, it will take the searcher nanoseconds to scroll past your content. It doesn’t matter how great the piece of an article you have written is if it is trapped behind a bland and boring title.

A great headline doesn’t just satisfy your readers, but also caters to Google too. It precisely captures your target keyword which is essential for making your content more discoverable and driving more traffic to your blog.

Now, the objective of writing great headlines is not to make them clickbaity but click-worthy. There’s a difference!

A clickbait headline hypes things up but often disappoints, like “This 2-Minute Exercise Melts Your Belly Fat in 10 Days.” Meanwhile, a click-worthy headline makes a promise that actually delivers, such as “How to Download a YouTube Video in 3 Easy Steps.”

A click-worthy headline grabs your attention by offering something achievable and then follows through with simple, straightforward instructions. When you use click-worthy headlines, you build trust with your readers and establish yourselves as a reliable source of information.

How to write great headlines with ChatGPT

To entice a user to click, a powerful headline employs subtle psychological tricks. This involves the strategic deployment of numbers, emotionally charged words, triggers, and other tactics that can pique a user’s interest and encourage them to click.

That’s because words matter.

If you are not yet convinced, have a look at the following two headlines and decide which one would you wanna click more:

— “9 Cool Tips to INCREASE Your Website Traffic.”, or

— “9 Insane Tips to SKYROCKET Your Website Traffic.”

Obviously, the second headline is more punchy and clickworthy. It promises a little more, hits a little harder and evokes more emotions.

This is because the second headline uses a strong adjective and a punchy verb, albeit an exaggerated one.

We can prompt ChatGPT to make use of these subtle cues and craft catchy headlines for us. Here are a few prompts to use with ChatGPT to write great headlines.

1. Use numbers

People love list posts, and headlines with numbers in them tend to perform better. For example, “10 Tips to Reduce Belly Fat.”

Listicles have an element of certainty inherent in them. They are easy to digest and quickly scannable.

One of the reasons they perform so well is that the reader can grasp the content of the blog post just by skimming through the bullet points.

Also, some studies have found that odd numbers work better than even numbers in headlines.

Here’s a prompt you can use with ChatGPT to generate headlines for listicles —

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some listicle style headlines for my blog post. Use odd numbers only.

Here’s ChatGPT’s response:

The next tip will teach you how to pep up your listicle headlines even more.

2. Use punchy adjectives

Which of the following listicle headline pops out more:

Obviously, the second one.

Powerful adjectives make your headline hypnotic. Always use an intense adjective after the number in your listicle headlines.

Here’s a sample ChatGPT prompt to generate such headlines —

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headlines must use attention-grabbing adjectives such as “mind-blowing”, “eye-popping”, “jaw-dropping” etc.

Output:

Hyperbolic adjectives

To boost the clickthrough rate of your headlines even more, replace weak adjectives (shocking, surprising, unbelievable) with hyperbolic ones such as “jaw-dropping”, “Earth-shattering” and “mouth-watering”.

I got ChatGPT to write me 50 such hyperbolic but evocative adjectives. This list is super useful for anyone in content creation. Use these adjectives wherever they make sense. (Just don’t overuse them.)

3. Make a promise

Headlines that promise something specific are more likely to get clicks. For example, “How to Reduce Belly Fat in Just 30 Days.”

Here’s a ChatGPT prompt to elicit this type of headline —

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headlines must make a promise. For example, “Get strong muscles in 3 months with cycling”.

You can spice up your headlines even more by replacing familiar-looking numbers with bizarre ones. For example, “30 days” is a common phrase, you see it all the time. What if you replaced it with some weird number, such as “43 days”?

Suddenly, your reader’s interest is piqued. They start to wonder: “Why 43 days? What makes this specific timeframe so special? Is there something cool about this that I need to know?”

This shift in perspective can create a sense of anticipation, drawing the reader into your content and making him click your title.

Remember, your aim is to make your headline stand out. When everyone else is busy using the same cliche, you will be better off using a weird or wacky number.

Just remember not to overpromise or stretch it too much. (“Reduce belly fat in just 3 days and 5 hours”). That’s just scammy.

4. Use emotional triggers

Headlines that evoke emotion are likelier to get clicks. Use trigger words such as “surprising,” “shocking,” “heartwarming,” or “outrageous” in your headlines to boost engagement with your audience.

For example, “The Surprising Trick to Reduce Belly Fat in Just 30 Days.”

Here’s a ChatGPT prompt:

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headlines must use emotionally triggering words like “shocking”, “heartwarming”, “outrageous” or “surprising”. An example of this type of heading can be “Secret benefits of cycling for women over 40”.

Output:

5. Address a common problem

Identify a problem your target audience likely has and offer a solution in your headline. For example, “Sick of Belly Fat? Here’s How to Get Rid of it.”

Readers afflicted with that problem can identify with it and surely click on your title to learn the solution.

Here’s a sample input to write these types of headlines —

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headlines must address a common problem that occurs in the absence of cycling. One example of such a headline is “Having Belly Fat? Cycling is the perfect solution for women over 40”.

Output:

6. Use power words

The presence of strong, attention-grabbing words in your headlines increases user engagement and makes them wanna click. An example of such a headline is “The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Your Belly Fat.”

A few examples of power words are “secret,” “proven,” “ultimate,” “must-read”, or “revealed.”

Input:

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headlines must use power words like “ultimate”, “secret”, “proven” etc. One example of such headline is “9 secret benefits of cycling for women over 40.”

Output:

7. Use a freshness angle

Including the current year or month in your headline can make your article stand out as fresh. For example, “How to Reduce Belly Fat in 2023“.

A sample input:

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headline should convey that the article has been written for the running year. The headlines may contain the current year (2023) to give this impression. One example of such headline is “7 Ways Women Over 40 can Benefit from Cycling in 2023.”

Output:

8. Use parenthesis

Using parentheses to break up your headline can make it compelling and more appealing. For example, “Google Updates its Algorithm Again (and Why You Shouldn’t Bother Anymore).”

A sample ChatGPT input:

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

Headlines should have a parenthesis or brackets with some cue words inside them. An example of such headlines is “7 Benefits of cycling for women over 40 (you will be surprised by 5th and 6th).”

Output:

9. Use current trends or events

Current events or trends make your headlines more relatable and bring in a freshness angle that we discussed in point #7.

An example of these headlines is “How to stay physically and mentally healthy in the pandemic.”

Here’s a sample prompt you can use with ChatGPT

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post. Headlines should make use of current trends and events, especially corona pandemic, US election campaigns for 2024, Oscars 2023 etc.

An example of such headlines is “How women over 40 can benefit from cycling in the pandemic.”

Output:

10. Use a strong verb

Start your headline with a powerful verb to make it more compelling.

Which of the following two headlines are you more likely to click:

— “Learn the Craft of Cursive Writing”, or

— “Master the Craft of Cursive Writing”

Most people would click on the second one. The verb “learn” has a connotation of a process or a journey of learning, whereas the verb “master” subconsciously implies an outcome (that you will become an expert).

Replacing weaker verbs with stronger ones can skyrocket the click-through rate of your headlines.

Sample ChatGPT prompt to write headlines with strong verbs

I am writing a blog post on “benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post. The headlines should use strong verbs such as “accomplish”, “achieve”, “master” etc. An example of such a headline can be “achieve maximum fitness using cycling if you are a women over 40”.

Outcome:

Other examples of weak and strong verb pairs are (“do”, “accomplish”), (“get”, “achieve”), (“become”, “transform”), (“see”, and “perceive”).

You can use ChatGPT to come up with strong verbs to replace weaker ones in your headlines.

11. Use a controversial statement

Make a bold or controversial statement in your headline to grab readers’ attention. For example, “Why Email Marketing Is Dead (and What to Do Instead).”

Sample ChatGPT prompt

I am writing a blog post on “Treadmill alternatives”. Write me some headlines for my blog post. The headlines should make a controversial statement and then offer a way out. An example of these headlines is “Say goodbye to treadmill (and what to do instead).”

Output:

12. Use social proof

Use numbers or statistics to show your reader that your content is popular or well-regarded. For example, “600 Thousand People Can’t Lie: The Most Popular Gaming Laptop in the World.”

A sample input prompt:

I am writing a blog post on “Benefits of cycling for women over 40”. Write me some headlines for my blog post.

The headlines should use social proof. An example of such a headline is “3200 women share their Cycling journey: It has been game-changing for them.”

Output:

13. Call to action

Use a call to action in your headline to encourage your reader to take action. For example, “Don’t Miss Out on Amazon Black Friday Sale: Macbooks on Huge Discount.”

This type of headline works best for email marketing and ad campaigns.

An example prompt to elicit such headlines is:

I am writing an email on “50% discount on all products”. Write me some subject lines for my email.

The subject should use strong call to action such as “don’t miss out”, “Buy now” etc. An example of such a subject line is “Click here to avail 50% discount on all our products right now.”

Output:

Test a headline

Are you wondering if changing a few words here and there, adding numbers or parenthesis, or these so-called “psychological triggers” in headlines actually works or it is a complete hocus-pocus?

Rest easy, it’s not mumbo-jumbo. Great headlines are a real thing and people have gone far in devising tools that measure their “click-ability”.

One such tool is Headline Analyzer from monsterinsights.com.

This tool measures several parameters in your headlines such as the presence of common words, uncommon words, emotional words, and power words. It also analyzes the sentiment of your headline, word count, character count, and a number of other factors.

After analyzing various factors, it gives you a score between 0 to 100 for your headline. The higher the number, the more click-worthy your headline is.

Keep in mind that this score isn’t the end-all, be-all measure, though. Other headline analyzers like Capitalize My Title and Sharethrough Headline Analyzer may show drastically different scores for the same headline.

There are, however, a few pointers to keep in mind that will appease all headline analyzers:

1. Keep it short: Most headlines are between 8 to 10 words and 50 to 60 characters.
2. Put your keyword first: Some studies suggest that Google gives more weightage to the titles that have the target keyword at the beginning.
3. Curious readers are more likely to click: If people are intrigued by your headline, they will likely click on it to learn more. For example, “I ate MacDonald’s Big Mac for 30 Days Straight. This is What Happened.”
4. Short questions in headlines also work: “Hate Subscriptions? Try this”, “Tired of Belly Fat? Try this Exercise.”, “Want to 10x Your Productivity? This Tool can Help.”

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to craft great headlines using ChatGPT to seduce readers to your blog.

The tips I outlined in this blog will infuse subtle clues in your headlines that will trigger the reader’s brain psychologically. Where strong adjectives and emotional triggers make a user want to click the title, using numbers, power words, and controversial sentences makes him intrigued.

Remember, our goal is to make click-worthy headlines, not clickbait. And don’t forget to test your headlines with various headline analyzer tools outlined in this post.

Hope this post taught you something new. Tell me in the comments what other tactics you use to make your headlines great. Thanks for reading.