A few years back, copyblogger.com made a startling discovery about web readers, and the content writing industry was turned on its ear. It turns out that while 8 out of 10 people will read the headline, only 2 of them will bother reading the rest.
For the writer, this means you can take days putting together an enlightening post, gathering facts and verifying information, only to have it passed by readers 80% of the time because the headline did not raise their eyebrows. Admittedly, I struggled with headlines for a long time after that news break. I would scratch my head for hours trying to capture the essence of my article, while still compelling people to read it. Until I had my forehead slap moment, when I realized that I had been approaching headline writing from the wrong direction.