How to Write Non-Sucky Headlines That Actually Get Opened and Read

Blah. Blah. Blah.

There are so many headlines and subject lines that suck.

And don’t get clicked and opened.

So How do you write headlines and email subject lines that people click? is a question I get ALL. THE. TIME.

So I thought I’d share the answer with you, in case you were wondering, too.

To be more precise, I asked my friend and tribe member

Derek Hughes

(aka the headline whizz, that’s how I call him because he has a headline fetish but in a good way) for an interview (you need to check it out, if you haven’t yet).

Derek also joined my membership experience for paid susbcribers (The Online Writing School) for an exclusive live session on how to write non-sucky headlines and subject lines.

Based on Derek’s feedback, tribe member Dr Nia D Thomas started changing all the titles of her Substack publication Knowing Self, Knowing Others and shared:

3 seconds!

I’m a fan of ohhh’s. I bet you too.

I’m the one that exclaims during lunch breaks:

Ohhh, that’s a good slogan!

Here’s an example from my family vacay.

There’s a burgergrill food chain called PETER PANE in Germany.

So it’s not Peter Pan. It’s Pane.

Pane is Latin for bread.

And the slogan (translated from German into English) is #CHILDATHEART.

I’m a child at heart!

Look at me in this picture, smiling like a child!

If you wonder:

Kristina, where’s your burger with the pane?

This is my salad burger. I am gluten intolerant and couldn't eat the burger ban. But they had a fantastic vegan burger sauce and mayonnaise.

But anyway.

Slogan. Headline. Or, if you email a list, subject line.

No matter how you call it, you want to write something that doesn’t suck.

How does Derek Hughes come up with non-sucky headlines people click?

Derek Hughes

was so desperate for success. He’d use a different tactic every week. And swing wildly from one style to another. Trying to hit the magic formula. He was treating writing like buying a lottery ticket. Hoping to wake up one day and discover he’d made it.

Many writers make the same mistake.

Focusing on tactics and ignoring their wider strategy.

• Tactics are the details. eg. how to write a headline.

• Whereas strategy is the long-term process of how you build an audience.

Without a clear roadmap, you’ll lose motivation. And make random decisions.

Now Derek makes over $1000/month on Medium.

The 1% rule

So make tiny changes otherwise you’ll be paralysed.

A bundle of tiny improvements will make you a phenomenal writer. Because of the 1% rule.

Imagine you have $1 and it gains 1% every day. How much will you have after 1 year? Our brains think 0.01 × 365 = $3.65. But the answer is $37.

That’s a 3700% increase!

Compounding is a superpower. It works because you gain on your gains. Creating mind-blowing results. Use this to become a great writer. It makes growing super easy. Improve your skills by 1% every day. And you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year. Do it for 3 years and your growth will be off the scale.

Becoming good will get you ahead of 97%. But if you have more ambition than that. You’ll need to get smart.

What you shouldn’t use in your headline

I discovered this by accident.

I was looking through my early content. They all performed badly. But I noticed a blip. My 18th post did well. I wondered why it’d gained so much attention. It got 284 views. But only 129 read it. That means the article was rubbish. But the headline was good.

Here it is:

I suspected the idea of removing things to improve life was the reason. It sounds easier than adding more to our to-do list.

So I tried the tactic again.

Anything above $50 is a top performer for me. So $64 is great.

A few months later I repeated the trick.

$120! Wow double the earnings.

Then again:

These all have different content. But reuse the headline tactic. I’d hit on a formula for instant success.

The point is not use remove things in your headline. But that the top writers develop smart systems. This is now one of mine.

Every month I review what has worked. And find a way to repeat what does.

Currently I have a list of 10 things I reuse each month.

I’ve also created systems for:

• ideas (bucket system)

• editing (checklist)

• outlines (templates)

• headlines (templates)

These have made me faster and better.

Derek on Medium / Derek’s FREE Long Form Mastery Email Course & newsletter

Hungry for more?

I talked with Derek about “The Rule of 10”, “The 4Ps”, “The Curiosity Gap” and more frameworks that help you come up with a non-sucky headline: