How important is a headline? No, really! Is it important at all?
I ask this, because as an Indiehacker I feel like we're going to be overindexing on free traffic. Word of mouth, forums, communities, SEO even. Where the person coming is not coming to our page cold.
They, (traffic/people), are coming in on either a tool, or a specific landing page that is not our main page and will figure out what we do far before reading the headline of our main page.
I ask this as I test out new headlines and search for the all important "best" headline.
I'm seeking The headline that encompasses who Better Sheets is for, what it does, and how that person can feel after they've been Better Sheets'ed...
Actually, the "Your Sheets Sucks! Unsuck them" is the best one! It's unique, it takes a positioning and make the "tranformation" of the product very clear: to UNSUCK the Sheets.
Also, it IS very useful to generate paid traffic and should definetely be done TOGETHER with organic traffic, since you can start experimenting with as little as one dollar a day!
But coming back to headlines: VERY important! They give context and basically tell how the product "feels" even before you red about the features! Also, the brand positioning in general is very important, and should influence directly in the headline choice!
And don't worry about turning some prospects off: your positioning being clear drive your conversions way higher than being generic to try and please everyone, specially when you are not marketing to huge markets, you have to drive away the unwanted to drive IN the customers you want and who believes in what your company believes!
Headlines that focus on the outcome are better than those that focus on the "what".
I would say that probably 95% of landing pages I see from Indie Hackers are feature focused, not outcome focused.
By way of example, the primary headline I currently have for GapScout is:
Are you ready to win more customers?
Which is better than:
AI that analyzes reviews
Both are true, but one is outcome focused which is what people care about the most, they don't care about the what or how.
Awesome note MrJustin.
You've got to make it enjoyable, attention-getting, and worth reading. A headline should be short, snappy, and relevant. It should be able to predict the product's benefits.
"Where the person coming is not coming to our page cold" then i think the most important factor is that you retain "scent" and have message match with the traffic source, that is to say, the visitor see's what they expect to see (same / similar message and branding). As long as there is a natural flow, you should ok, in terms of avoiding too many bounces, but the headline is important if it confuses, i.e doesn't match, i.e. = "huh?". Secondary to that is you do then surely, want the headline to draw the visitor in; give them a reason to stay and scroll down. So you want to be breaking it down...
A. Traffic source message, connecting to...
B. Page headline / image (first thing they see), connecting to..
C. The next thing you want theme to do (read the sub head, scroll down, click a button whatever
And so on.
Each of these elements, has its own job and each brings an opportunity for you to lose your hard fought for visitor.
If you need help constructing a headline and clearly communicating your value proposition, this may help:
https://landingpagehub.net/value-proposition-statement-guide-ffw-1-5-1/
I might steal your idea actually...
Your headline sucks.
Unsuck it.
Make better headlines.
;)
I would try/buy with C headline.
Haha, very interesting title! I thought: really, why do I read the headlines, and what is the most important thing on the page for me? Hmm...
I'm not an expert at all, but what comes to mind is:
So if I choose, I like option D the most: it is concise and clear to me :)
"What if I'm not that audience, but I'm interested? It always confused me :) So I always wonder why this info is here."
The point is so that the audience it is meant for can instantly recognise "this is for me" If you're not that audience, but you are interested, great, but thats just gravy. What you don't want is to lose the opportunity of quickly connecting with that target audience by being vague, in the hope might attract a wider audience.
I can see why it's hard, but you don't have to hit the 'who it's for', 'what it does' and 'how the person can feel' all in one sentence. Most websites are quite literal for their H1 actually - like focus in some vaguely aspirational way about 'what it does', and then the rest of the site is much more about talking to the user, being benefits-led etc.
I think the examples on your twitter thread are either too long, or a little convoluted. Maybe just 'Your Google Sheets Bible' and the subtext can be like 'become a google sheets god with access too blah blah blah'
A catchy and meaningful headline is very important to me. It breaks a post if you don't use a catchy headline. It makes a post if you use a catchy headline. I will recommend a catchy headline any day.
It doesn’t really tell me the benefit or sell me the outcome. benefit could be : Streamline Your Business with Functional Spreadsheets that spells out the data in a clear way…but as you mentioned on your twitters saying “you suck st spreadsheets” though “unprofessional” may not be to the person who has said this. I don’t know if this helps, but I don’t care about making better Google spreadsheets if I don’t know what the code benefit of making good spreadsheets is.
But the product is for costumers that already know the benefits of having a good spreadsheet. It's better to focus on the people who are more likely to buy than trying to educate the cold public on your landing page! Talking to cold public is way better done on blog posts, newsletters and social media! Then, when they already know they need better sheets they will be ready to know "their sheets sucks" and may be willing to buy!
Well that makes all the difference! Then I think your “my spreadsheet sucks” should resonate!
as usual, it depends. If your traffic is mostly or entirely coming from forums and similar type of "filtered" audiences, then your headline is not so important indeed. But if you expect organic growth from wider circles elsewhere, including word of mouth outside of your home community, then a catchy and meaningful headline is quite important.
re: Better Sheets, I do not have an opinion, sorry.