It’s the most important part of your copy…and most people get it wrong.

Writing your headline? Think “storytelling” first.

Copywriters mostly agree on one thing: Headlines are important. You’ve probably heard that 7 (or 8, depending on who you read) out of 10 visitors will read your headline and skip the rest of the copy.

The purpose of the headline is to get readers so curious they’ll continue on past the headline.

So you’re getting ready to write a sales letter. Do you begin with the headline? Or write the copy and tack on the headline later?

Brian Clark in Copyblogger says to write the headline first. The idea is, your headline represents a promise to your readers. The rest of your copy supports your promise.

Some say write it last. After all, you often don’t uncover your guiding message until you’ve written your copy. So you don’t want to be locked into an irrelevant headline.

I encourage my clients to start with a working headline.

For my recent course on headlines, I started with a blah, bland headline: “The headline is the most important part of your copy.”

I began writing the copy. One point I wanted to make was: