Barbara: I'm ready to dive into the headlines and the subheads. What do I do first?

Kendall: There are a lot of different styles of headlines. There are three, though, that stand out as the most powerful and they are the "How," the "Numbers" and the "If" style. There are many different types of headlines and these are the three that have proven to be most powerful. You might want to use a variation on them, and that's fine, especially if you are stuck. This is a great way to generate lots and lots of different headline choices for yourself. Let me go through and explain each one and give some examples and you ask me questions about each one as we go along.

The first one is the How style, which goes like this: How to ____ so you can ____. For example, "How to write web copy like a pro so you can capture more clients." That's the How style. Do you have any questions about that one?

Barbara: No, it's very straightforward and there doesn't seem to be any tricks to it.

Kendall: No, I call it "no muss, no fuss." A variation is to say "Discover how to." or "Discover how." "Learn how" is also good. It depends on your audience. For a more corporate or executive audience, the word "learn" or just "how to" will be very strong. For an entrepreneurial audience or more of a creative audience like speakers and coaches, "discover how" or "learn" would be very good.

Barbara: It has a little bit more romance to it.

Kendall: It appeals to our sense of loving a lot of variety and options. We entrepreneurs, as a breed, are very inspired by different options, and we also love to learn. That's why "discover how" or the "learn how" works really well for us.

Barbara: The corporate people want to go straight for the message.

Kendall: Exactly.

The second one is the Numbers style, and that's where the headline has a number in it somewhere. You don't have to start with a number. For example, (I used this on websitewisdomu.com) "You're just 8 weeks away from a client capturing website." I've got the number 8 in there. We see this style used a lot on magazine covers. If you look at magazines like Glamour or Cosmopolitan or some of the men's magazines, they'll say something like, "Are you making these 3 dreaded kissing mistakes?" You think, "Oh my gosh, I don't know, am I making those 3 kissing mistakes?" Another magazine headline you might see is "8 ways to captivate your date." They always have some kind of number in there that catches your attention.

Barbara: Why do numbers work?

Kendall: Numbers give something very specific for us to hang on to. If you say "Avoid these 3 dreaded kissing mistakes" all of a sudden I want to know what those 3 mistakes are. They really just capture our attention. Interestingly enough, at least in our Western culture, odd numbers work really well. There's a reason there's the "7 Habits of Highly Successful People" and the "9 Steps to Financial Freedom."

Barbara: We do find Top Ten tips all the time.

Kendall: Top Ten is the exception and, of course, 12 Step is another exception. The book The Four Agreements is another exception. But those are exceptions. Most of the time you see 3, 5, 7 and 9. Our brain is also able to take in information in small groupings, so when we see the number 3 or the number 5 it's very easy for our brain to understand that. It's very easy for that message to come into our brain and we stay more receptive to it.

Barbara: Larger numbers feel like harder work?

Kendall: They actually do. Let me test this out. If you heard the "15 dreaded kissing mistakes", doesn't that just sound overwhelming, like you wouldn't even want to try and find out what they are?"

Barbara: Exactly. I'd never remember that many.

Kendall: But three, that's manageable, that's a small bite-size chunk. So, that's our second style of headline and again, you can either start with a number or use it somewhere in the sentence of your headline. By the way, here's a tip. Don't spell out the number. You want to use the numeral. Again, it's just snappier and somehow more captivating to see the actual numeral.

Barbara: That hits your visual sense, using the numerals.

Kendall: That's right. The third style of headline is the If style and the format is this: If ____, then ____. For example, "If you're struggling with writing your own web copy, then this could be the most important step you take."

Barbara: That's a good one.

Kendall: It is. What I really like about these three styles of headlines is that they help us be very specific and results-oriented. Just by the way they're formatted, they help us start thinking about results.

Barbara: That's where they lead the brain. In other words, the brain wants to find out where you're going with it.

Kendall: Absolutely. We want our visitor to be thinking about results because really, no matter what business we're in, whether we're a coach, consultant, trainer, resume writer, or an organizer, it doesn't matter. We are in the business of delivering results. We are in the business of producing change in some way, so we want our headline to paint that picture. What is the change, or what is the result that we are delivering? We want it to be fairly concrete.

Barbara: A lot of these examples sound kind of long. They are long sentences.

Kendall: Yes, they are long.

Barbara: Does it matter?

Kendall: I think it does matter. I think it's really important that they be long. A lot of people get hung up on long sentences and they think they have to be short because they're thinking of newspapers. Newspapers have very, very limited space. They only have two, three, or four words that they can use and as we said earlier, in a previous class, the web does not have that restriction. On the web, longer sentences do work better. Again, you can go to magazine covers. Magazines tend to have a little longer descriptions on their covers. I say don't be afraid of long sentences. Absolutely go long so that you can communicate the full impact of what you're writing.

Barbara: Back to your point of making the headline really practical. What if my service is more of a soft service, not a hard-hitting product kind of thing?

Kendall: A lot of people think "Oh gosh, I don't deliver results. I'm not helping a business increase their profits, or I'm not helping someone lose weight." They think that they're not doing something specific and tangible and to that I say, "Phooey!" No matter what business you're in, you are producing something that can be made tangible, and that's our job—to make what we do appear as tangible as possible. I believe that every business can be described in very practical terms.

Let's use an example that a lot of people would not think of as being very practical. For example, a spiritual coach. Spiritual coaching may not sound very practical at first blush, right? But you could create a headline, for example, a How style headline that says "How to bring the power of spirit into your life so you can achieve your life purpose." That sounds pretty tangible, doesn't it? Let's continue this example. Use the number style headline. How about "3 spiritual practices you can do right now to achieve your life purpose." That sounds good, doesn't it? I want to know what they are. Let's try the If style headline: "If you're walking a spiritual path, then this could be the most important step you take."

Barbara: Yes, I'm very curious about that one.

Kendall: I like the middle one and you like the last one. But hear how tangible and concrete all three sound? If I can draft these examples for spiritual coaching don't you think anybody can create a headline and make their service tangible?

. . . End of sample eLesson transcript (Note: Sample given is only for a small portion of the entire eLesson).