Headline writing is an art. Spend some time really thinking about it, maybe even running your final headline by a few people, to get their impression. It’s worth it.
A couple of tips—keep it short. Make sure you use your target audience’s name in the headline. Remember, there’s a lot of article competition out there.

For example, if you target small business owners, try to use the term “small business” or “small biz owners,” or “small biz entrepreneurs,” or something like that. Put it right out there. You want a reader to be reading and saying, “Hey, this article’s about me, because they just said my name.” Tell your readers in the headline what they’re going to learn. Don’t make them guess. Don’t use puns. Don’t hide what your article is about. Don’t try to be cute.

If your article explains, in a quick shot, what it’s going to do, what a reader’s going to get from it—compared to someone else, who has the same content, but wrote some silly, secretive, hidden headline, or cute—then you are going to get clicked on more than your competitor.

More tips on headline writing for online portals exist in the transcript How to Submit Online Articles That Pull Traffic to Your Website.