Headline analyzer. Score out of 100.
Score any blog title, meta title, or ad headline on length, word mix, emotion, power words, clarity, and SERP fit. Browser-only; nothing is saved.
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A headline is a promise with a deadline.
A blog headline is the one line that decides whether anyone reads the other two thousand. Five ingredients matter, in rough order of impact. Specificity - a number, a named entity, or a concrete promise outperforms abstraction. Length between 6 and 12 words for body headlines, 50-60 characters for meta titles. One power or emotional word to create lift. A type that matches the search intent: how-to, listicle, question, or definitive statement. And a promise the reader can cash - what will they know or be able to do after reading?
Length behaves differently depending on where the headline lives. On-page H1 titles can stretch to 12-15 words because the page has room; meta titles must fit Google's 580-pixel SERP cap (about 60 characters in most sans-serif fonts) or face truncation that cuts CTR by 10-20 percent. Ad headlines have their own limits: Google Ads allows 30 characters per headline slot across three slots; Meta recommends 27 characters for primary text. Email subject lines perform best at 50 characters or fewer because mobile inboxes truncate longer lines. The one headline rarely fits every context; write variants.
Power words and emotional words create measurable CTR lift. CoSchedule, Backlinko, and MOZ have all published data showing a single power word (definitive, unbeatable, proven, never, zero) adds 15-30 percent to click-through. Two power words add less incrementally; three or more starts to trigger clickbait detection both by readers and by Google Spam Brain. The sweet spot is one per headline, used at the beginning or end where attention is heaviest. Overusing power language also erodes trust when the body copy cannot back up the promise - a headline claim the article does not deliver is the fastest way to a high-bounce ranking penalty.
Format fits intent. How-to headlines (How to X) match tutorial intent. Listicles (7 X That Y) match scan intent and still outperform prose in 2026 despite being declared dead every year since 2015. Question headlines (Is X Worth It at Y Revenue?) match AI-search and featured-snippet intent because they map directly to queries phrased as questions. Definitive statements (The Definitive Guide to X) match pillar-content intent for users looking for a single comprehensive resource. For AI search specifically, question headlines extract better than statement headlines because LLMs match query phrasing to document phrasing when selecting citations.
Related tools: Readability checker for the body text the headline precedes. Meta tag preview for how the headline renders in Google SERP. Slogan generator for the brand-level tagline above the headline. Keyword density checker for the body tuning.
Seven answers.
What makes a good blog headline?
Five ingredients. One, specificity - a number, a named entity, or a concrete promise outperforms a vague abstraction (7 Gmail Filters That Save 40 Minutes a Week beats Gmail Tips). Two, length of 6-12 words - long enough to load meaning, short enough to fit Google's 580-pixel title display. Three, an emotional or power word (definitive, shocking, surprising, zero, never) - headlines with one emotional word outperform bland titles by 20-40 percent on CTR per CoSchedule research. Four, a value promise - what will the reader know or be able to do after reading? Five, a type that matches intent (how-to, listicle, question, or definitive statement).
How long should a meta title be?
Target 50-60 characters, hard cap at 580 pixels (which is approximately 60 characters using most sans-serif fonts). Google truncates titles past 580 pixels with an ellipsis, which kills CTR by 10-20 percent. Different letters take different pixel widths; capital M and W are wide, lowercase i and l are narrow. For SEO-sensitive titles, run the final version through a SERP preview tool to check actual pixel width. Blog-post headlines on-site can be longer (up to 12-15 words) because on-site headlines have more space; the meta title is a separate, shorter field optimized for SERP display.
What are power words and should I use them?
Power words trigger emotion or urgency - definitive, unbeatable, shocking, proven, free, instant, secret, hidden. Research from CoSchedule, Backlinko, and MOZ consistently shows headlines with at least one power word have 15-30 percent higher CTR. The caveat: overuse (3+ power words) makes the headline feel like clickbait and erodes trust. One per headline is the sweet spot. Use sparingly for evergreen content; use more liberally for time-sensitive or campaign content where the goal is immediate click. A simple heuristic: if the headline embarrasses you slightly on the first read, it has the right amount of power language.
Are numbered listicles still effective in 2026?
Yes, though their edge has narrowed. Listicles continue to outperform prose headlines on CTR because they promise specific structure (7 Tips = seven things, scannable). Odd numbers outperform even numbers (7, 9, 11 beat 6, 8, 10) - a finding consistent across BuzzFeed, Medium, and Upworthy data from 2015-2024 and still valid in 2026. The narrower edge: AI search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AIO) extracts listicle items as citation-friendly passages, which keeps listicles competitive as a format even as visual SERP design moves past them.
Should I A/B test headlines?
For high-traffic content: yes. For low-traffic blog posts where the test would never reach significance: no, just write the best headline you can. The minimum viable A/B test needs about 10,000 impressions per variant to detect a 10 percent CTR difference at 95 percent confidence. Email subject lines, paid ad headlines, and homepage hero H1s usually clear that bar quickly; blog post titles rarely do. For blog posts, test the headline via reader poll or headline analyzer score before publishing; optimize post-publication via Google Search Console queries and Title Rewrites based on impressions without clicks.
How do headlines work for AI search in 2026?
AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AIO, Claude) extract passages from ranked pages to construct answers. The headline + first paragraph together determine whether the passage gets extracted and cited. Headlines that match the user's query phrasing (not the SEO keyword) extract more readily. Question-format headlines (How Do I Increase Shopify Conversion Rate?) extract better than statement headlines for most AI-search intents because the AI can match them to user queries phrased as questions. The underlying SEO principle holds: write to match how your reader would ask the question out loud.
Does this tool save my headlines?
No. Every headline you enter lives in memory for this browser tab only. Nothing is transmitted to a server, stored in a database, or synced across devices. Close the tab and the data is gone. The Copy score button puts a summary of the analysis on your clipboard; the original headline stays local.
Headlines are downstream of positioning.
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