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

    • Limit who can submit a support ticket to your site?

      Does anyone have a use case for needing to limit who can submit tickets via your help portal? Some of our customers want to have end-users view our knowledge base articles and see tickets their IT groups have submitted but they do not want end-users to

    • Is there a way to request a password?

      We add customers info into the vaults and I wanted to see if we could do some sort of "file request" like how dropbox offers with files. It would be awesome if a customer could go to a link and input a "title, username, password, url" all securely and it then shows up in our team vault or something. Not sure if that is safe, but it's the best I can think of to be semi scalable and obviously better than sending emails. I am open to another idea, just thought this would be a great feature.  Thanks,

    • Allow us to disable the Reopen Ticket button after a ticket is closed

      Disabling the Reopen Ticket will allow us to have more control over the ticket's flow. According to support, this is currently not possible. Please add this to let us, the customers, mold the ticketing system into something that we can use for our business

    • How to Enforce Mandatory Fields (Category/Sub-category) Before Closing a Ticket?

      Hi, I'm currently using Zoho Desk and encountering an issue where agents are able to close tickets without filling out mandatory fields, specifically Category and Sub-category. I’ve already set them both as a mandatory field, but it can still be bypassed

    • Admin Control for Default Email Templates in Zoho Desk

      Hi Zoho Desk Team, We would like to request a feature enhancement related to default email templates. Currently, agents can select and set their own default email templates when replying to tickets. However, we believe this setting should be managed centrally

    • Lock out of account after password update

      This is a bit of a catch 22 situation. I updated my account password using password generator in ZohoValut. Now I am locked out of everything, as I cannot get into OneAuth for 2FA, as the password is randomly generated, without getting into ZohoValut,

    • Guidance on Making Zoho Desk Connections Available for All Data Centers

      Hi Team, I’m currently developing an application using Zoho Desk connections to manage OAuth for my third-party products. Could you please advise on the steps required to make it available across all data centers? Looking forward to your thoughts on

    • Multibrand Help Center - Share knowledge base catgories between multiple departments

      Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to share categories between multiple departments when the multi brand feature is enabled. So that then one portal exists per department, but certain categories are visible in multiple portals. After all, we

    • Unable to upload document error on zoho sign

      i am creating a document using laravel php and here is my code and i get this reponse {"code":2005,"message":"Unable to upload the document","status":"failure"} $path = storage_path($file); $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://sign.zoho.com/api/v1/requests');

    • Cloud to cloud folder migration from Sharepoint to Workdrive

      I am aware of OneDrive migration: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/workdrive/migrations/microsoft/articles/migrate-from-onedrive-to-zoho-workdrive#Whats_migrated would this cover a Sharepoint migration meaning I can move a whole Sharepoint (team) folder

    • Zoho Sign / Prefill By You - Editable by Them!

      Zoho Sign seems to have two field options available - an empty field for signer(s) to complete or a field that has been prefilled by you, that becomes read only once sent.  What I would like is an option on the pre-filled by you fields, to leave them

    • How to sort a data in summary report with Monthly ?

      Hi Team, Can any one help me out how to sort a data based on monthly, Month was shuffled based on aliphatic order. i want to sort the below data monthy?

    • Is this link the transparent pixel used to track opens?

      Could someone please help me identify this highlighted link? It is automatically created by Zoho and a lot of contacts receiving campaigns will click on this link. I don't believe that it is the "update your preferences link" because on the Link Clicks

    • Kiosk Studio wrap-up | How our community used kiosks in 2024

      Hello, everyone! Happy new year! The end of 2024 has been busy, and 2025 promises to be bigger and better. As we ring in the new year, let's rewind and look at Kiosk Studio, our no-code customization tool. The past 300 days have seen the CRM community

    • Zoho Crm - Inventory Integration

      Hello, I need help about Map Fields between CRM and Inventory. For Example, I can't match amount of stock between these 2. I can put opening stock number  in Inventory but I can't see it on CRM. Also I want to see categories and parent categories on Inventory, in CRM too. Best Regards.

    • Inventory Valuation Method Feature

      Zoho added another feature so called Inventory Valuation Method of each Item. This is actually good to see and it will benefit us so much but I have a question on this. For Existing Items that already have transactions, Zoho made it a default and assumed

    • Where is the customization and extendibility of zoho inventory?

      After delving into zoho one subscription to test out systems we need for our business, I'm really disappointed after working in Zoho Inventory. Its features and customizability are extremely lacking compared to the other tools like CRM. In our case we

    • Organization Variables - Restrict Access

      Currently, there is no way to restrict the access to organization variables. This leads to a problem when storing API related values that should be kept secret as anyone with access to create and edit email templates, workflow rules, or inventory templates

    • Values in multi pick list are not copied to copied deal

      Hi, After a deal is completed in our sales funnel we copy the deal to an automatically created new deal in our project funnel. All fields are copied properly, but only a Multi Pick List is not copied. How can we copy the selected values in this field

    • Zoho takes too long to load...

      I am based in Europe and in the last couple of weeks, Zoho CRM takes minutes even to load modules. Is there a specific reason this is happening? Is this happening to other people?

    • Modules are continuously loading

      Hi! We are not able to open the task modules, it keeps continuously loading

    • Execution failure when fetching a Name field from another app

      In creator I have one app [Employee Directory] with a form [Employees]. One of the fields is a name field called [Name]. Here is a sample that works, if executed from the Employees app: test_Employee = Employees[Name.first_name == "Alex"]; info test_Employee.Name;

    • Accessing Subform Data using getRecordByID

      I am getting data from Zoho Creator using deluge zoho.creator.getRecordByID task, from another application. The report contains a subform, and that subform is in the detail view of the report. I do not appear to have any subform data in the JSON response,

    • Allow customer to select meeting duration

      I would love to see a feature where I can give the customer the option to select the meeting duration they require based on a dropdown list which I have predefined in the service settings. For example: 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes.

    • Can you internally tag/categorize posts for campaigns?

      Would love to easily sort through posts by tags or categories (i.e. we have multiple memberships and share studies from each. It would be nice to pull reports in a second for "membership A studies" for a campaign etc.).

    • Function 56: Automatically enable the option for customers to pay via bank account

      Hello everyone and welcome back to our series! One of the key features of Zoho Books is its integration with multiple payment gateways, allowing you to receive online payments for your invoices. This ensures faster payments, automates payment tracking

    • Connect multiple Facebook ad accounts to Zoho Social

      Hi there. I'm doing the Facebook Ads and Zoho Social integration to automate the leads that come from Potential Customer campaigns on Facebook to Zoho CRM. I have a company (1 fanpage, 1 brand), but within the business or brand on Facebook, I manage several

    • Custom service report or Zoho forms integration

      Hello, So far the experience with Zoho FSM and the integration with Books has been good, however there are limitations with service reports. As with my business, many organisations send technicians to different types of jobs that call for a different

    • Creation of Path and subpath

      In order to improve the structure of the website for better organization, I would like to consider that when publishing a page, it can be within a section and sub-section. For example, if I have an events option in the menu, I can put past events and

    • Assign task owner using Deluge

      Use Case: Each task is a document development task wherein once the developer has completed the first draft, the next step in the process is for the document to be QA-ed by the project's assigned auditor. Thus, I am currently working out a blueprint where

    • Using AVG in SQL Query

      My current SQL Query is: SELECT "Client Info", avg("Revenue") FROM "Funded Deals" GROUP BY "Client Info" The current table that this is creating: Client Info avg(Revenue) Previous 4175 1st - New 3411 1st - Old 3013 Renew 3069 While this works as I had

    • Meta and Facebook data report discrepancy

      I have been currently gathering manually facebook follower data thru meta. In zoho marketing plus the social media reporting only allows for page likes, and so there is a discrepancy with the data. please the difference in files attached. Is there way

    • Links in Instagram

      Hi there, I have been using Later for a while now but keen to come back to Zoho Social as Later doesn't offer tagging of pages on Facebook but they offer something Zoho doesn't. You can add a link to your bio which opens up your profile feed where images

    • If I turn off the Task Prefix & ID in the Portal Configuration section, will it remove the dependencies in my projects?

      Hi all, basically the title, I am new to zoho projects and trying to get my head around some basic principles. Unfortunately I have not found this information via the search option and after deleting yesterday some Phases I had created in the Phases tab,

    • Enter dates in tasks with just "tue" or "+10" or "5d" ???

      Is there any way to enter due dates in tasks without typing the whole date or making time consuming clicks in the calendar? I don't see anything online in the help or third party videos.

    • Multiple time zones in zoho projects

      We are working in an international team. We need to set up different time zones in the organizational settings or at least for one project within zoho projects. Any ideas or help? Thx in advance

    • Zoho Desk : Field for 'Layout'

      I have many different layouts on my helpdesks and I want to be able to identify the stats for each one, however I can not find the field in the raw data from the Zoho Desk datasource. I thought it might be in the "Tickets" table but there is nothing.

    • Customize Zoho One Dashboard and URL?

      Hi everyone, Is there a way to customize my Zoho One URL to be different from the default portal URL? The current portal URL is: one.zoho.com/zohoone/[organization] I want to map it to its own standalone domain that we own. eg) domain.com instead of one.zoho.com/zohoone/[organization]

    • Enable Sending Direct Messages to Self in Zoho Cliq

      Hi, I would like to request a feature enhancement for Zoho Cliq to allow users to send direct messages to themselves. Currently, Zoho Cliq does not have the option to send a direct message to oneself. While creating a channel with just one member (the

    • JOB Sheet can not send PDF as service rapports and more info needed other topic

      Goedendag, - Jullie hebben nu job sheet erin gedaan en dar is echt super goed, enkel kunnen we de werkbon ( JOB sheet) nu niet verzenden als PDF als een service rapport naar onze hoofdaannemer hoe we dat nu doen als bewijs van de levering van het werk

    • Next Page