Wireless sensor network (WSN) has a significant role in wide range of scientific and industrial applications. In WSN, within the operation area of sensor nodes the nodes are randomly deployed. The constraint related to energy is considered as one of the major challenges for WSN, which may not only affect the sensor nodes efficiency but also influences the operational capabilities of the network. Therefore, numerous attempts of researches have been proposed to counter this energy problem in WSN. Hierarchical clustering approaches are popular techniques that offered the efficient consumption of the energy in WSN. In addition to this, it is understood that the optimum choice of sensor as cluster head can critically help to reduce the energy consumption of the sensor node. In recent years, metaheuristic optimization is used as a proposed technique for the optimal selection of cluster heads. Furthermore, it is noteworthy here that proposed techniques should be efficient enough to provide the optimal solution for the given problem. Therefore, in this regard, various attempts are made in the form of modified versions or new metaheuristic algorithms for optimization problems. The research in the paper offered a modified version of particle-swarm-optimization (PSO) for the optimal selection of sensor nodes as cluster heads. The performance of the suggested algorithm is experimented and compared with the renowned optimization techniques. The proposed approach produced better results in the form of residual energy, number of live nodes, sum of dead nodes, and convergence rate.