Your headline makes your first impression with readers. A strong headline can drive more clicks.

A
weak one can send traffic away.

That’s why it’s important to spend time getting them right.

25 headlines might sound like a lot. However, if anything, you could consider this the bare
minimum. Some will be better than others. Some, in fact, will be downright terrible.

That’s okay though. You have to burn through bad ideas before you can find what works.

Your brain was made for this. Headline generation is just another form of idea generation that
forces you to use your brain’s reticular activating system (RAS) to inspire creativity. RAS is an
important part of our brain that is used for things like breathing, sleeping, waking, and also the
beating our heart. It is basically the part of the brain that works when we aren’t.

By forcing ourselves to generate more than a few headlines, we put our brain to work using our
RAS. We may think of 10 headlines right now, and then suddenly generate a few more when we
aren’t even trying (or while writing the post itself). This is your RAS at work. It is subconsciously
providing you with creative ideas while you are busy doing other things. As much as we try to
systematize it, creativity is often very spontaneous, and can actually get “better” with time.

From Psychology Today:

The creative process moves through five stages. It begins with preparation–an analytical time
when the basic information or skills are assembled. It continues on to incubation–a more intuitive
and subconscious time in which you connect the dots in a default state. If you stick with it
through perspiration, this process will eventually lead to revelation–the eureka experience when
you literally feel the tumblers of your mind click into place and you say: ‘A-ha, I have found the
solution!’ The creative process ends with production, a time when the insights are put into a useful
form and shared with others. View Source

Headline generation lives right there between incubation and perspiration. But, what’s even more
interesting is how our ideas over develop over time. This is something that Tim Hurson calls the
third third.

2. The Third Third

In his book Think Better, Tim Hurson defines an interesting phenomenon that clearly proves why
more headlines are better than just a few. One of his key points is the miracle of the third third. It
works something like this: if you are looking to generate 100 different ideas, studies have shown
that the ideas will generally fall into three different groups.

1. The first third (up to idea 33): This group will consist of the most obvious picks. They’ll
be “typical” and won’t usually represent anything new or interesting. In other words, they
will be the least creative. If you are like most bloggers, this is where most of your headlines
come from. Oops!
2. The second third (idea 34 to 67): During the second third, your ideas will start to gain
some momentum. You will begin to think more creatively and start to generate some actual
“new ideas.” But, don’t stop there. Many of them will still be based on prior knowledge and
experience.
3. In the third third (ideas 68 – 100): The final third will represent your best chance at
coming up with a unique and innovative idea. During the first two thirds, you were able to
exhaust the obvious ideas, forcing the new and unique to float to the top.