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Keep Negative Messages Out of Your Headlines

A Web Copywriting Tip by Nick Usborne

This may sound obvious, but all too often headlines either include negatives or qualifiers.

Here’s an example.

Recently I was reading a blog entry, saw a link to an interesting article and clicked on it.

The link didn’t take me to the article, it took me to a registration page for the Financial Times. That was pretty annoying, but I’m used to major content providers asking for basic login information before they let you in.

However, here is the headline they used to entice me to complete the registration form:

Subscriber tools and third party articles are not included in FT.com’s Free Access Week

Wow. Up until that point I didn’t know they had a free access week, or that they had third party articles, or even subscriber tools.

But now I do know. And I know I can’t have them.

Of course, they didn’t tell me about what I WOULD have access to.

Needless to say, I didn’t register. All I actually wanted was to read the article.

But the barrier they raised between the article and me was too high to be worth climbing.

And they certainly didn’t help by devoted their entire headline to telling me what I wouldn’t have access to.

The tip? Always keep negative messages and qualifiers out of your headlines.

(You'll find some great advice on writing headlines in this e-book by Clayton Makepeace, "Double Your Profits in 12 Months Or Less!" )

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