Chances are you don’t have the luxury that writers at the award-winning satirical news network The Onion have, which is the freedom to write your headlines before you write the story.
Instead, you probably labor over your story first, and then plunk out whatever title you think fits it best. (If you’re really lucky, you simply turn over the piece to an editor who will do the heavy hed lifting for you. Thank God for freelancing, right?) But in case you were too busy stacking old copies of your college newspaper to notice, headlines are pretty important on the Web. In fact, they’re probably more important than the lede and story itself.
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But how exactly do you craft a good headline for the new media age? Should everything be written countdown style as “6 Ways to Do XYZ,” be shamelessly SEO focused like “Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, and Kim Kardashian Naked Photos,” or go straight for the jugular like this one? Well, yes and no. There are some no-fail strategies for crafting headlines that will wow and inform your audience, ensuring they click, read and come back for more.
Keep it SEF: Search Engine Friendly
While Google, Facebook and Twitter are tops for serving up news and information, that doesn’t mean you should load up your story with unnecessary keywords just to get eyeballs. What you should do, however, is think about those terms readers might use to find a story like yours.
Michelle Licudine, digital audience editor at The Palm Beach Post, says, “That’s a tough one for writers to follow because they take pride in crafting headlines — a clever one and a strong one — for display in print. Google favors a different kind of clever: one that demonstrates an appreciation of what people are looking for.”
Freelance writer and mediabistro.com instructor Jenna Rose Robbins agrees. “Headlines have more SEO value per word than the rest of the article,” she says.
For example, if your piece focuses on top bed and breakfast spots in Philadelphia, are readers more likely to type in “B&B Philly” or “East Coast inns”? If it’s a slideshow of celebrity couples, more people may be searching for “celebrity pictures” versus “celebrity photos.” So, the best way to narrow down your choices is to use free tools like the Google AdWords Keyword Tool or Yahoo’s Buzz Index. Doing so can be the difference between your story landing on the coveted first page of search results or the death sentence of page five.
| “Google favors a different kind of clever: one that demonstrates an appreciation of what people are looking for.” |
Leave a little to the imagination
Don’t give away your story in the headline like you would in print; omit important pieces to make your readers want to click for more information. For example, Robbins says, “If the headline says, ‘Lindsay Lohan to Star in an ’80s Movie Remake,’ you’re still wondering what movie. You want to have those keywords in a headline, but you still want to leave a question.”
Shirea L. Carroll, Web editor for the celebrity and lifestyle pub Juicy adds, “When writing, especially for a celeb-driven website, your headline should be slightly confusing, meaning it should give enough to make you want to read because you’re not completely understanding.” Such was the case when she titled a picture of rapper Jay-Z entitled, “Jay-Z Moving His Package, No FedEx.”
“Readers are curious, like, ‘what exactly are they talking about?'” she says. “[As a reader] I’m already enticed, but I’m not quite understanding what they mean, so it’s a headline that people would be compelled to read more.”
Take advantage of unlimited space
A short, simply-the-facts headline often won’t work online, says J.J. Gould, deputy editor of TheAtlantic.com. “In print, first, space is more of an issue, so you need to be relatively brief. Second, you already have more of your reader’s attention in print than you do in digital, so your headline has to do more work in digital. For that reason, you often have to use more words in order to be clearer about what you__?re saying and what it means.”
Carroll agrees. “A couple of years ago, simple and concise was the way to go, but for many [publications], even when it comes to SEO value and Google value, headlines are tending to be a little bit longer,” she says.
Giving the story away in the hed is acceptable sometimes if the stories are photo-driven and filled with click-throughs and captions. “The lede sometimes now has become the headline, [and then] you give a couple of details in the body,” says Carroll.
| “Today’s journalists need to learn SEO techniques as much as, if not more, than their predecessors who worked the print industry needed to learn AP.” |
Give the people what they want
Would your readers cringe if they read the word “nipple” in your title? Juicy‘s readers didn’t. In fact, when “Kelly Rowland’s Nipples Make an Appearance” was posted to the dotcom after the pop singer suffered a wardrobe malfunction during a performance, it became one of the most popular stories for that week, Carroll says. When you know the type of audience you have, it’s perfectly okay to let it all hang out (or not) in headlines. “For Juicy, using the word nipple in a headline isn’t offensive at all. It was more of a call-to-action to actually read the story,” she explains.
As another example, Complex.com, which caters to the 20-something male (median age is 29), recently ran this story: “From Dimes to Deuces: 10 Women Who Used To Be Hot.” Not only is the promise of pretty women enough to get young guys riled up, but the editors also know the lingo their readers are likely to use when searching. (A “dime” is slang for a “10,” an attractive female.) You wouldn’t use the same headline for a middle-aged women’s magazine, like Woman’s Day.
It’s okay to deviate from AP style
In a post for Online Journalism Review, blogger Robert Niles advised students to abandon journalism’s Holy Grail and focus solely on SEO. He writes, “Today’s (and tomorrow’s) journalists need to learn search engine optimization techniques as much as, if not more, than their predecessors who worked the print industry needed to learn AP.”
Licudine suggests using a mix of the two writing styles to be effective in reaching new readers via search engines without turning off your old audience. “In essence, there needs to be a balance. You don’t want to deviate from consistency that has earned you credibility and trust with your readership.”
The traditional rules in headline writing can be bent now, rather than completely abandoned. Spell out city names, instead of using abbreviations like PB for Palm Beach and use full names rather than only last names as you would in AP style. “What we’ve found is whereas you’re used to editing for space constraints in print, you don’t always have those on the Web. You can flex a little bit,” Licudine says.
Practice makes perfect
Every week, writers at The Onion gather in a room for hours to brainstorm story headlines. Only 16 are needed for each issue, but about 600 ideas get drafted and thrown out. Take a page from their book and practice writing headlines for stories constantly, even if they won’t be published, to get the hang of it.
If you have access to your publication’s analytics, use those numbers as an indicator for what works and what doesn’t or consult with your editor. Carroll says, “As an editor, we’re able to see more times than not what people are responding to by page views and what stories are popular. That’s what is going to guide each site. You’re going to let that be the mold until another story does better. It’s constantly changing.”
As the Web continues to grow and search algorithms are refined, the necessity for succinct summaries and titillating story titles are only going to become more important. So, whether you view headline writing as fun or just a necessary evil, better perfect those skills now if you want to keep the assignments (and page views) flowing.
“Stop being a writer for a second, and just be a person,” advises Licudine. “Be clever in a new way that can get people’s attention because ultimately, you worked hard on the story, and you want people to see it.”
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Alisha Tillery is a freelance writer living and working in Memphis. She maintains a personal blog, Because I Said So.
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