A/B Testing Idea #2: Make your headlines sound super cool.

A/B Testing Idea #2: Make your headlines sound super cool.

Hello everyone,

We're back with our second post in the CRO testing idea series. If you missed the first post, please check it out here: "Place irresistible and clear CTAs." In today's post, we'll look at how to effectively A/B test your headline content.


 
Some people say "you only get one chance to make a first impression" while others contend that it only takes seven seconds to make an impression about someone or something. Well, the same concept applies to your website.

A good first impression on your website is crucial for making visitors trust in your products/services and keeping them tied to your business forever. Creating this first impression depends on many factors like structure, colors, spacing, symmetry, amount of text, and fonts. But, of everything else, a good headline plays a major role in the success of your website.  

Your headline is the first thing that readers see as soon as they land on your site; it holds the power to make or break a deal at first visit. Even if your content is truly unique and innovative, a weak headline can ruin its chances of being super successful in terms of conversions. So how do you create a strong headline that drives more traffic and clicks on your website?

Here are a few aspects to consider as you A/B test your site's headline content:

Communicate your brand's purpose
Often we just assume that the visitors fully understand everything about our website and its product offerings. However, that’s not always the case, especially for new visitors. With hundreds of websites selling products/services online, it's important to make sure that the primary headline on your homepage tells visitors what your website has to offer and how it aligns with their expectations—all in a few short seconds. Tweaking and testing headline copy that clearly communicates your brand's purpose and differentiates yourself from the competitors can encourage your visitors to take the desired action without another thought.
 
Example:
Say you own a website testing and analytics software solution that offers a set of tools to grow an online business. Take a look below at the old and new versions of the same headline message. Notice that while the first tells people what the product is, the second tells people what the product will actually help them do.



Extra tip: The easiest way to determine if your brand message is clear to your visitors is by assuming your audience knows nothing about the business you're running.

Try different headlines for different set of target audiences
Each website caters to a specific type of audience. So understanding which audience group you cater to, where they come from, what their interests are, and what information they are hoping to find on your site is another major parameter to consider before starting to test your headline content. Testing and optimizing your headline copy based on a particular set of audience segments like demographics (such as location, gender, age, etc), personal interests, and past engagements with your site can help you deliver personalized content for each category of visitors, which is more likely to generate conversions. 

Example: 
Say you run an ecommerce business and want to A/B test your headline copy with enticing offers for returning visitors to see which one convinces them to fulfill your conversion goals.
 

Extra tip:
  • You can target your A/B test in PageSense using a variety of audience segments such as visitor type, device used, JS variable, day of the week, and more to learn which version grabs your audience's attention immediately and performs best for each segment.
  • To know your target audience better, you can set up polls on your website using PageSense and learn your visitor’s business (or personal) needs and how your product can help achieve them. Later, you can use this feedback to test and optimize your website content. 
Match your headline with your ad copy
When a visitor clicks on an ad, it's of the utmost importance to match the message on that ad to the headline content on your post-click landing page. If your headline doesn't match the offers and features that you promised in your ad copy, you're wasting all your marketing investment and conversion opportunities. A/B testing your headline by incorporating relevant keywords that resonate with your ad copy can help you reassure people that they've come to the right place. It can also later persuade them to take the desired action on your site more quickly. Further, this type of testing is more likely to generate increased clickthrough rates, conversions, and revenue for your website.  
 
Example:
Say you're running a Facebook Ad for older travelers, and the post-click landing page shows the most relevant tourist packages, flights, and hotel stays based on their interests. Now compare the old and new headline messages below to see which version of the message sounds better.



Include stats and numbers
Numbers in your headlines are a great way to grab attention by spontaneously triggering curiosity in your targeted audience. When you use symbols like %, $, or digits instead of words to express percentages, dollars, or numbers in your headlines, it creates specificity around the duration, size, value, etc. of what you're offering customers, which is more attractive than a generic offering. This is a powerful psychological tactic that spotlights your headlines and immediately hooks the reader's interest, which results in more traffic.

Example:
Consider the pricing page of your website and see how adding a number to the headline can increase reader engagement.


Follow the problem-solving methodology
Solving your customers' problem is the easiest and fastest way to reach their heart. Crafting a headline that addresses an issue and provides a cutting-edge solution to solve the problem can make optimizing your website easier. Intriguing your readers like this can make them look for more information on the rest of your site. Further, when done well, it can build a solid emotional bond between you and your customer for a longer term.

Example:
Take a look at the image below to see how implementing the problem and solution technique in your fitness website can make your headline sound more interesting.


 
Test with power words and sentiments
Sometimes the right audience is just one word away. Using forceful positive or negative power words in your headlines has the potential to kindle your customers' emotions and inspire action on your website in no time. Also, these words can guarantee more clicks and make your headlines stand out from the rest. You can test your headlines depending on two groups of power words:  
  • Negative headlines: This type of headline tends to intrigue your customers by setting a stage to avoid a miserable situation. It includes words like never, stop, worst, avoid, or do not.
  • Positive headlines: This type of headline tries to build a relationship with feel good emotions. It includes words like best, always, fastest, easiest, most, greatest, largest, funniest, hottest, strongest, biggest, and ever.
Example:
Take a look at the image below to see how the choice of words can invoke a positive feeling as you read the headline.



Test the font and appearance of your headline
The presentation (color, fonts, and layout) of your headline copy has a huge impact on the performance of your site. Below are a few points to consider while testing the appearance of your headline:
  • Use title case. Avoid writing your headlines in all caps as it can reduce the readability of your text.  
  • Choose a font style and size that matches your website's personality. The most popular font style is sans-serif and font size is 20 - 36 pixels.
  • Apply colors that contrast (while complimenting) your website's background well and focus on the legibility of your content.
  • Align your headline perfectly with your body content for a bigger impact. Centered headlines are most powerful visually, while left-centered are more conservative and formal. 
Example:
Say you own an online food delivery website, and you want to test the color and font of your homepage headline for better clickthrough rates. Take a look at the before and after images of the headline below. Which one you think will attract more eyeballs? 

 
Try out the two-part strategy
Don't forget your supporting cast! Successful headlines act in two parts. Including a persuasive subheadline copy below your headline can be another winning strategy to pull your customers deeper into your website. You can test different versions of your subheadings to see which best suits your visitors, such as explaining a bit more about your product or services, emphasizing your product benefits, or encouraging visitors to click the CTA button placed on your site.

Example:
Take a look at the main headline and the subheading of a customer support software website as shown below. In this case, your subheadline re-affirms how your software helps your customers and adds emphasis about different product features.

 
Test the headline length and SEO compatibility
Test your headline for the right length, SEO keywords, and sentiments. Keeping a headline no longer than six words will help readers easily process your text and attain the goal of your website. Using free headline analyzer tools such as Coschedule or Sharethrough can help you effortlessly understand your website's performance. They analyze important factors (like searchable keywords, word balance, and sentiments) and assign a percentage score based on how good your headline is. They'll help you identify the factors you need to improve for more productive headlines.

Example:
Let's say you own an online pet supply store and you want to test the headline of your homepage to attract more visitor traffic. The screenshots below show the performance of both the old and new versions of the headline in terms of length.



Bonus tips:
  • Create a sense of urgency in your headline with words like "today," "now," and "last-minute offer."
  • Use comparison phrases like "versus" to reinforce the benefits and features of your products/services.
  • Research your competitor's headlines to add more value and optimize your headlines better.  
We hope you found this article useful. What is your favorite headline tester? Have you had any success with headline A/B testing? Do share with us in the comments box below.

Happy testing. Happy converting!

Thank you.

    • Recent Topics

    • Quotes

      Has anyone figured out how to automatically upload a quote that was signed via Zoho Sign and insert it directly to that leads file and push it through the pipeline to proposal signed status?

    • I wan to schedule a meeting report From previous Thursday to this thursday of this week on Every 6 pm want to recive this report in zoho CRM

      I wan to schedule a meeting report From previous Thursday to this thursday of this week on Every 6 pm want to recive this report in zoho CRM. How I Can achive this in Zoho CRM.

    • Importing a contact with a linked product

      Hi, I'm trying to import my contacts from an excel spreadsheet and each of those contacts have fields that relate to products. Is there a way that I can import the contact with their linked product? Some of the contacts in my spreadsheet have multiple

    • CRM - Workflow Rules to be applied and work across modules

      Hello, It seems that you can't use workflow rules in CRM to work across modules, is this correct? I need a customer account status to be changed IF there have been no new deals or new quotes in the last 6 months. I can't see this is possible? I can create

    • Auto assign account owner

      hi, i need to auto assign leads and accounts to an owner by rules. i have created all the territories i need, and all territories have their owner. but when i want to auto assign a new or an existing account to a user by the rules of territories, only

    • How do I enter phone extensions?

      How do I add a phone extension correctly so that when I dial the main number it will pause and dial the extension of the contact I want to talk to Greg

    • How do you make tabs and place certain leads in them?

      I am trying to figure out how to make a tab for my Florida contacts, California contacts and New York contacts. I make a new view named "Florida Leads" but when I click on it, ALL of my leads pop up in the same view... Is there a way to move leads into different categories? Thanks, Wayne

    • Boolean Fields in Mail Merge Displaying as Checkmarks

      I'm really liking the new mail merge functionality. It's replaced the Zoho Sign extension for us. One problem I've seen is that boolean operators (i.e. Checkbox fields) in CRM merge as "True" or "False". This looks a little ugly in my final document —

    • Web to lead form not working

      I am starting to use this Zoho product (3 users for free) to see if it really does what it should prior to making a purchase decision. One of the important parts of the ZOHO CRM is the ability to create a web form that auto generates a lead. We have set

    • Is this a valid email from Zoho or a scam?

      Hi, I received an email advising me to update MX records for Zoho mail. Is it legitimate? Thanks, Nelson. Dear Admin, You may know that your domain (eg, yourcompany.com) has an MX record that points to an email server configured to process email for your domain. We have noticed that some of our customers have used Zoho IP address (instead of DNS server name) in their MX records to specify the mail server. This is NOT recommended practice. Vendors will sometimes change IP addresses for number of valid

    • Search on Postcode criteria not working properly

      Hi there, I used to be able to do an advanced candidate search on 'Postcode starts with' and then enter the first two letters of the UK postcode.  So if I used CH then it would bring back candidates in CH1, CH2, CH3 etc.  This seems to have changed in the last week so that it now only brings back postcodes that exactly match CH only.  I tend to use this search criteria extensively so need a fix for it asap please.

    • Quotes vs Invoices vs Sales Orders

      We have the need to create either quotes, invoices or sales orders for services we provide to clients for our sales team to present to them.  However, we are confused in the purpose of each and which we should choose.  Could someone explain the difference in them? Also, with these, we will have setup costs for our clients and then fixed monthly costs.  For instance, we have services that are one-time services at $997 and then we have others that are monthly only ($250 per month).  In addition, we

    • Tip 14: How to iterate a set of Deluge code a specific number of times.

      Hello folks, As you might already know, recursive functions are used to perform a particular action a specific number of times. We had explained this in detail in our Tip #2. Similarly, there is another way in which you can iterate a set of Deluge code 'n' number of times. All you need to do is to create a List and use the For each index task to iterate it for a specific number of times.    Here are a few use cases where this would be useful to you:  To create 'n' number of duplicate records for

    • Can't set conditional layout rule on lookup field in Zoho CRM

      Namaskaram Zoho CRM team,      Usually any fields of module except mandatory fields can be hide using conditional layout rules.  But that can't be set on lookup fields event that is not a mandatory fields.  Many users are in need of that.   Crafted with

    • Online Calculator

      Created a public shipping volume calculator for my website visitors to use. its pretty cool when you combine the power of zoho sheets and the web experience. I chose zoho because our users dont need to login or created acct like google doc users. this is great because ppl will accept the technology more without resistance. you can see the online calculator here: hxxp://www.dblusa.com/dbl_calculator.php peace! RSA

    • All about Users in Zoho Projects

      To form a functional team, businesses should define different types of users in their team. Businesses can be effectively managed by inviting users to various roles. And, the person who has the administration privileges can invite or add users to various roles in the project. Two types of users Before going into the steps to add users to your portal or project, let's understand the different types of users:  Portal Users - Users who work for the projects in your team.                      ~ Portal

    • Zoho Projects API 100 requests/2 min. Limit

      Hi Requesting clarification on the API documentation. "You can invoke or call an API for 100 times in a span of two minutes. If you invoke more than 100 times, the particular API request will be locked for the next 30 minutes. " Does this limit apply

    • Calendar Connection Enhancement

      Hello everyone, Greetings from the Bookings team. We're here to announce an important Calendar enhancement that will roll out soon. Let's take a look at what's being changed. Improved and more straightforward UI The Calendars UI is undergoing a complete

    • Bookings to CRM - New Events and Contacts

      Hello, I have an issue with appointments taken by clients from a Zoho Bookings page. Previously when an appointment was reserved, if there were no client created in Zoho CRM, it would create it in the CRM through the integration between both platform.

    • Generating Discount Coupons for Zoho Bookings

      Hi, Is there provision to generate Discount Coupons for appointment bookings? I could not see that in the settings and this is very much needed. Please suggest us. Thanks

    • How do I remove mail hosting?

      I have a problem, I can't remove mail hosting. I need to remove them to cancel my domain, but it's imposible to cancel or remove the mail hosting. Please I need help urgently to resolve this problem.   Thanks

    • Notes created in mobile app not syncing with web notebook

      I have created certain notes in a new notebook in mobile app. The new notebook is also created using mobile app and when I logged in through web I am unable to see notebook that I have created using mobile app. there is no trace of notes in which i have created in mobile app on the web even after days of creating in mobile app This is not the case vise-a-versa. the notes and note book created on web are accessible on mobile app on real time.  this is very inconvenient and big demotivating factor

    • Desk - CRM Integration: SPAM Contacts (Auto Delete)

      SPAM contacts is a useful feature, but when the CRM sync is used, it is very frustrating. When a contact is marked as SPAM on Desk, I wish to do the same on CRM. When a SPAM contact is deleted, I would like it deleted from CRM. The feature looks half-baked.

    • No more IMAP/POP/SMTP on free plans even on referrals with NO NOTICE

      Outraged. Just referred a colleague to use her domain (not posting it publicly here) to Zoho, just as I have other colleagues, clients, friends. Expected the exact same free plan features as I have and as everyone else I ever referred got. I was helping

    • Mac Thunderbird zoho e mail account issues

      I have issues with a user account on thunderbird e mail client who suddenly does not receive emails, when you click get messages we get an error "sending of password for user ......did not succeed, mail poppro.zoho.com responded service unavailable" after

    • PASSWORD

      Hello, I'm Joyce, my client used zoho for password sharing, he did share the canva but once I clicked on it it will not automatically log-in, instead I need to log-in again. My question is my boss log-in first to his gmail and use his gmail to log-in

    • Kaizen #195: Frequently Asked Questions on Bulk Read API and Bulk Write API

      🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • admin problem

      i can't to reach for the panel that i will create another mail to our company account i have admin access but i can't reach the panel our Company name Scale point my mail asmaa@dcalepointhub.com please can you help me Thanks

    • 554 5.7.1 : Recipient address rejected: user [username] does not exist

      Hi, I mistakenly altered my shopify email settings (where my domain is managed), but immediately reverted them, however now I have a strange email issue. I can send emails just fine, but cannot receive them. I have tried all troubleshooting steps but

    • Legit email address?

      Hello, I received emails from zohoadmin@biznetvigator.com with a password expiry notice. is that a legitimate email?

    • SMTP Authentication Fails with App Password – “535 Authentication Failed” Error

      Hello, I'm trying to send transactional emails from my WordPress website using the WP Mail SMTP plugin with Zoho Mail (smtp.zoho.com on port 465 with SSL). I've created and used a Zoho Mail app-specific password for SMTP, and verified that: The email

    • Deluge script issue : Mismatch of data type expression. Expected BIGINT but found STRING

      I'm building a Zoho Creator form to take inputs for Email, Bootcamp Name, and Tag. If a record with the same Email + Bootcamp exists in a custom module (bootcampattendence), I want to update it by adding a new tag. If it doesn’t exist, I want to create

    • Survey end date extension

      Hi, Is there any way to extend the end date of my survey? I needed more time in finding respondents that is why I need to extend the end date of my survey. Help. Thanks

    • Problem with signature in a forwarded mail

      Dear All, In my email account I created a signature and I unchecked the 'Place signature above the quoted text for relies and forwards' My question is, when I am trying to forward an email, sometimes I need to insert my signature so I select it from the

    • Out of Office not working

      I have set up out of office on zoho mail, however, it does not reply to every mail sent to it. I have tested it by sending several test messages from multiple different email accounts, I will get a response to some of them, but not all of them this is

    • Error message that says only images and no text

      I filled out a template for a weekly newsletter with text and images throughout but when I click save and next an error message comes up that says "Campaign content has only images and no text" which is not true at all. I have no idea how to fix this issue and don't know where the problem is. 

    • Contacts Don't Always Populate

      I've noticed that some contacts can easily be added to an email when I type their name. Other times, a contact doesn't appear even though I KNOW it is in my contact list. It is possible the ones I loaded from a spreadsheet are not an issue and the ones

    • Cannot add zoho email to gmail acc

      I'm trying to set up my zoho mail to connect to my gmail acc but no matter what I try I always get this problem. What should I do now? Password is up-to-date. Authentication failed. Please check your username/password. [Server response: 535 Authentication

    • 553 Relaying disallowed - Invalid Domain

      I have this error "553 Relaying disallowed. Invalid Domain" when sending an email to any email address. But I still receiving email from other emails. I checked MX, DKIM, SPF and it's ok. Could you check and help? Thanks

    • Turn off Organization Contact List

      We need to be able to turn off the Organization Contact list for some of our staff. Once the Organization Contact list is turned off for a user, we would then like to be able to create a list of contacts on per user basis that would not be editable by

    • Next Page