We’ve all heard business owners say, “I just need a website that looks professional.” That’s a fair request, right? But here’s the truth: a good-looking website is only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the surface lies the real backbone of online success—how content works on that website. And when we zoom in closer, one crucial element keeps showing up: your headlines.
Headlines—not just your homepage H1 or your blog post titles, but the headlines that frame each section of a website—play a far bigger role than most people realize. I’ve had more than a few client sessions that started with “Why isn't my website converting?” and ended with us renaming three section headers and watching the bounce rate drop over the next month. That's the power of headlines: they guide attention, create understanding, and build curiosity at every scroll depth.
In this post, I want to dig into the importance of headlines for website success. Not just from an SEO standpoint (though yes, we'll go there too), but from a psychological, persuasive, and navigational perspective. Whether you're updating a Wix portfolio or redesigning a Webflow marketing site, getting your headlines right can be the single easiest lever you pull to improve user experience and conversions.
Before we go further, let's clear up a bit of terminology. People tend to think of “headlines” only as blog post titles. But on a website, headlines include:
This broader view matters because every one of these headlines acts like a signpost for the user. They tell your visitor what they’re about to read, where they are on the page, and why they should care. Good headlines do more than indicate structure—they establish tone, confidence, trust, and clarity.
I like to compare it to renovating a home. You don’t just paint the outside a sleek shade of forest green and skip reinforcing the doors. Headlines are like doors and entry points. They're what users reach for as they try to understand what's inside each part of your site.
Think about your own web browsing habits. How many times have you landed on a site and scanned through it, eyes bouncing from heading to heading, deciding in just seconds if it’s worth sticking around? That’s exactly how most users behave. In fact, studies by Nielsen Norman Group have shown users typically read about 20% of the text on a page.
What do they read, then? The headings. The bold stuff. The things that guide the rest of their attention.
I run a little exercise with clients called the 3-second test. I open their homepage on a projector or screen, count to three, and then scroll past. Then I ask: “What stuck out to you?”
Nine times out of ten, the only thing they can recall is the hero line. And if that hero headline doesn't contain clarity, purpose, and some sense of ‘why us’, it's not doing the job.
Take a local client I worked with—let’s call them Harper Landscaping. Their original hero headline? “We Design Outdoor Dreams.” Beautiful, poetic, but vague. We changed it to: “Franklin’s Trusted Landscape Team for Hardscapes, Lawns, and Backyard Patios.” Bounce rate dropped by 18% over the next four weeks. Why? Because we gave visitors immediate clarity and local context.
When we zoom into SEO, headlines are one of the top structural cues Google uses to understand the hierarchy of your content. You’ve probably heard about “semantic structure” before—this just means making sure your heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) logically describe how your content breaks down.
If you misuse heading tags or don’t use keywords in your headings, you not only confuse readers, you rob yourself of an easy SEO win. According to Moz’s on-page SEO guide, optimizing headings can both improve rankings and help snippets make more sense in search results.
We worked with a small plumbing business near Nashville that had a good-looking, fast site—built in Squarespace—but it wasn't showing up for location-based terms. One major issue: every service page shared the same H1 tag—“Our Services.”
We restructured their headings to include service + location keywords: “Water Heater Repair in Bellevue, TN”, “24-Hour Emergency Plumber in Franklin.” Within 2 months, their impressions in local search rose by more than 40% thanks to a combination of proper headline tags and structured schema markup.
Imagine walking into a grocery store where there are no aisle signs—just racks and shelves and boxes. You’d get frustrated fast. That’s exactly how users feel on sites without clear section headings.
Psychologically, users rely on visual hierarchy to make sense of a webpage. If each section flows logically from the last with purposeful headings, users are more likely to keep scrolling.
I call this the “scroll momentum” effect: each heading should create a reason for the visitor to read the next part. Let’s look at an example.
We worked on a Webflow site for a creative agency in Tennessee who had gorgeous visuals, but user engagement was low. They had sections titled “Our Work”, “Our Process”, and “About”. Clean, safe...and totally uninspiring.
We changed those headings to create more narrative interest: “What We’ve Built for Brands Like Yours”, “Here’s How We Get You There”, and “The Team Crafting Your Next Chapter.” Now, each heading wasn’t just functional. It asked the visitor to learn more.
Here’s where things get really interesting. Headlines don’t just organize content—they persuade. We’re wired to pay attention to certain words more than others, especially words that suggest urgency, benefits, or specificity.
This is where your experience as a “marketing therapist” comes in handy. When you understand your client’s audience psychology, you write better headlines because you’re not just saying what you do—you’re addressing what people are worried about or hoping for.
For a therapist client that came to me needing SEO but also emotional clarity, their original headline was: “Supportive Therapy for Individuals & Families.” We tested a second version: “Anxiety, Stress, or Burnout? Let’s Talk About It.” The second version increased time-on-site by 39%.
Why? Because it acknowledged the reader’s pain point. Website visitors mirror the emotion of what they read. Headlines that show understanding outperform those that only display credentials.
One area people forget when writing headlines? Brand tone. You might have a super-friendly copy vibe in your welcome paragraph, but robotic section titles like “Solutions Overview.” That inconsistency is jarring.
Think of your headlines as part of your handshake. Are you formal, casual, playful, authoritative? A Webflow portfolio for a fashion designer can—and should—sound different than a WordPress site for a law firm. But the headlines set that tone much faster than people realize.
Read all the headlines on a given page out loud. Do they match how you’d explain what you do in a conversation with a client?
If not, rewrite until they not only clarify, but sound like you or the business you’re designing for.
Knowing good tactics is helpful, but catching common traps is equally important. Here are a few headline blunders I see far too often in client projects:
So, you’re sold. Headlines matter. But how do you actually come up with them if you’re designing a site from scratch or rewriting existing content?
For every page you're working on, ask: “What’s the main question the user is bringing to this page?” Then write a headline that answers or acknowledges that question.
When designing, layout should be determined in tandem with headline strategy, not before it. The best Webflow or WordPress designs I’ve built came from headlines first, structure second. Let your messaging inform layout, not the other way around.
Your first attempt won’t be perfect. Use Hotjar screen recordings, Google Analytics, or scroll depth analysis to find where people are disengaging. Then test different headings. A well-worded H2 can raise engagement just as powerfully as a color edit or UX tweak.
If there’s one takeaway from all of this, it’s that headlines are not throwaway copy or placeholder text to fill a page. They are strategic, persuasive tools that guide readers, signal search engines, and reflect your brand’s whole psychological vibe in seconds.
From Webflow to WordPress, Squarespace to Wix, every platform allows you to tweak your headers. But only thoughtful strategy can make those tweaks meaningful.
So as you work on your next site—whether for your own business or for a client—ask yourself: Are my headlines doing the hard work? Or are they just there to take up space?
Because in the end, the right headline doesn’t just inform. It invites. It sparks curiosity. It keeps someone scrolling. And sometimes, it becomes the reason they finally reach out and say, “This is the solution I’ve been looking for.”
Copyright © Zach Sean Web Design
