A few small changes can mean the difference between tons of traffic and ...crickets. As a purpose-driven organization, can you afford for your message to go unheard?
39. Works in Search Works in Social
Long-form text Compelling visuals
Answers questions Triggers emotion
Meets expectations A bit unexpected
Quotes from experts Quotes from social influencers
40. Works in Search Works in Social
Long-form text Compelling visuals
Answers questions Triggers emotion
Meets expectations A bit unexpected
Quotes from experts Quotes from social influencers
41. Works in Search Works in Social
Long-form text Compelling visuals
Answers questions Triggers emotion
Meets expectations A bit unexpected
Quotes from experts Quotes from social influencers
42. Works in Search Works in Social
Long-form text Compelling visuals
Answers questions Triggers emotion
Meets expectations A bit unexpected
Quotes from experts Quotes from social influencers
43. Digital Content Best Practices
Template for search-friendly headlines
Web Content Checklist: 21 ways to publish better content
44. Digital Content Best Practices
Web Content Checklist: 21 ways to publish better content
(keyword + colon + number + headline with benefit)
Template for search-friendly headlines
46. Digital Content Best Practices
Questions as title tags…have 14.1% higher CTR
Click through rate
source: Backlinko
47. Digital Content Best Practices
• Secret
• Powerful
• Ultimate
• Perfect
• Best
• Insane
• Amazing
Power words in title tags…
source: Backlinko
48. Digital Content Best Practices
• Secret
• Powerful
• Ultimate
• Perfect
• Best
• Insane
• Amazing
…decreased CTR by 13.9%
POSITION
CTR
source: Backlinko
Power words in title tags…
49. Digital Content Best Practices
Positive vs. Negative Superlatives in Headlines
source: Outbrain
52. Digital Content Best Practices
Number of Headline Words and Average FB Shares
source: Buzzsumo
53. Articles with 14+ word headlines get…
• 3x more traffic
• 2x more shares
• 5x more backlinks
source: SEMrush
54. Top Facebook Headline Trigram Average FB Engagements
Will make you 8961
This is why 4098
Can we guess 3199
Only x in 2398
The reason is 1609
Are freaking out 1559
X stunning photos 1425
Tears of joy 1387
Is what happens 1337
Will make you cry 1287
source: Buzzsumo
55. Top Twitter Headline Trigrams Average Twitter Engagements
This is what 174
For the first time 133
Things to know 123
X percent of 115
Will make you 114
Is the new 87
As it happened 86
First time in 80
Of all time 78
What happens when 73
source: Buzzsumo
56. Most Engaging Trigrams That Start Headlines
X reasons why These are the
X things you Here are the
This is what How to get
This is the X stunning photos
This is how X things that
X of the X things to
X ways to You can now
This is why The x most
The x best X things only
How to make Why you should
source: Buzzsumo
57. Most Engaging Trigrams That End Headlines
In the world Around the world
In x years X years later
Need to know In X days
Of the year Melt your heart
On social media To see this
Of all time What he said
Talking about it Is going viral
For x years X years ago
The first time See all day
After x years Give you goosebumps
source: Buzzsumo
58. “This is why these 10 stunning photos
will make you cry tears of joy!”
59. Digital Content Best Practices
Emotions get shared
source: University of Pennsylvania
81. When a headline’s a… …it can lead to… …if you…
Article header (h1) lower bounce rates Go long with specific benefits
Title tag higher rankings
Put the target keyphrase up front.
Use less than 60 characters.
Email subject line higher open rates
Use the most compelling, specific
words in the first five words.
Social media post
higher click through rates
and shares
Trigger curiosity and emotion, use
special characters, hashtags, emojis.
Video title more plays / views
Use the target phrase plus an
unexpected word. Put the headline
in the thumbnail image.
82. When a headline’s a… …it can lead to… …if you…
Article header (h1) lower bounce rates Go long with specific benefits
Title tag higher rankings
Put the target keyphrase up front.
Use less than 60 characters.
Email subject line higher open rates
Use the most compelling, specific
words in the first five words.
Social media post
higher click through rates
and shares
Trigger curiosity and emotion, use
special characters, hashtags, emojis.
Video title more plays / views
Use the target phrase plus an
unexpected word. Put the headline
in the thumbnail image.
83. When a headline’s a… …it can lead to… …if you…
Article header (h1) lower bounce rates Go long with specific benefits
Title tag higher rankings
Put the target keyphrase up front.
Use less than 60 characters.
Email subject line higher open rates
Use the most compelling, specific
words in the first five words.
Social media post
higher click through rates
and shares
Trigger curiosity and emotion, use
special characters, hashtags, emojis.
Video title more plays / views
Use the target phrase plus an
unexpected word. Put the headline
in the thumbnail image.
84. When a headline’s a… …it can lead to… …if you…
Article header (h1) lower bounce rates Go long with specific benefits
Title tag higher rankings
Put the target keyphrase up front.
Use less than 60 characters.
Email subject line higher open rates
Use the most compelling, specific
words in the first five words.
Social media post
higher click through rates
and shares
Trigger curiosity and emotion, use
special characters, hashtags, emojis.
Video title more plays / views
Use the target phrase plus an
unexpected word. Put the headline
in the thumbnail image.
85. When a headline’s a… …it can lead to… …if you…
Article header (h1) lower bounce rates Go long with specific benefits
Title tag higher rankings
Put the target keyphrase up front.
Use less than 60 characters.
Email subject line higher open rates
Use the most compelling, specific
words in the first five words.
Social media post
higher click through rates
and shares
Trigger curiosity and emotion, use
special characters, hashtags, emojis.
Video title more plays / views
Use the target phrase plus an
unexpected word. Put the headline
in the thumbnail image.
90. Digital Content Best Practices
source: How Little to Users Read? NN Group
During a typical pageview, visitors have
time to read 28% of the words at most.
20% is more likely.
98. Digital Content Best Practices
source: BuzzSumo dataset: OrbitMedia.com
Long content gets shared more
99. Digital Content Best Practices
source: HubSpot Word Count vs Average Linking Domains
> 2500
2250 – 2500
2000 – 2249
1750 – 1999
1500 – 1749
1250 – 1499
1000 – 1249
750 – 999
500 – 749
250 – 499
0 - 249
Long content gets linked to more
100. Digital Content Best Practices
source: Moz, Buzzsumo
Article Length Avg Shares Avg Referring Links
< 1,000 2,823 3.47
1 - 2,000 3.456 6.92
2 – 3,000 4,254 8.81
3 – 10,000+ 5,883 11.07
n = 489,128 articles (over 85% had less than 1,000 words)
Long content gets more shares and links
101. Digital Content Best Practices
source: CoSchedule
Long content tends to rank higher
102. Digital Content Best Practices
Average length of top performing content by industry
source: SEMrush State of Content Marketing, 2019
Long content gets more traffic
103. Digital Content Best Practices
Number of Words
Time on
Page
1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000
12 min
10 min
8 min
6 min
4 min
2 min
0 min
Length / Time on Page Correlation
105. Jerry Seinfeld
Comedy Legend
There is no such thing as attention span.
There is only the quality of what you are
viewing… People have an infinite
attention span if you are entertaining
them.
106. Each piece of content should be as
long as necessary to cover the
topic, and not one word longer.
108. Digital Content Best Practices
• More formal
• Longer (polysyllabic)
• Fancy, proper
Examples
acquire, transmit, construct, resist,
deposit, imitate, determined
Latinate words
109. Digital Content Best Practices
• Less formal
• Short (often monosyllabic)
• Forceful, direct
Examples
get, send, build, stop, put, mock, set
Anglo-Saxon words
112. Digital Content Best Practices
“This was perhaps the most significant finding of the study”
113. Digital Content Best Practices
“This was perhaps the most significant finding of the study”
“This was perhaps the biggest finding of the study”
114. Digital Content Best Practices
“This was perhaps the most significant finding of the study”
“This might be the biggest finding of the study”
115. Digital Content Best Practices
“This was perhaps the most significant finding of the study”
“This might be the biggest finding of the survey”
116. Digital Content Best Practices
source: NN Group, Lower-Literacy Users: Writing for a Broad Consumer Audience
Success rates after rewriting a health care site
for an 8th grade level readability…
Write for 8th graders. Write for everyone.
117. The bigger you make your words,
the smaller you make your audience.
137. Digital Content Best Practices
How to make a thumbnail with high CTR
1. Simple…so it looks good small
2. Headline …so they know what it’s about
3. Face …so it can convey emotion
140. Holding attention on long posts
Add something visual at every scroll depth
• Charts and graphs
• Diagrams and screenshots
• Faces of contributors
• Call out quotes and statistics
• Videos and animations
159. Thank you.
Reach out anytime.
Andy Crestodina
Co-founder / CMO
773.353.8301
andy@orbitmedia.com
Notas del editor
…when compared to articles with 7-10 word headlines (Source: SEMrush State of Content Marketing. dataset was 700,000+ articles from sites with 50k – 500k sessions per month)
We picked the top 20 traffic-yielding articles from each of the considered blogs and calculated their average length.