A friend and journalism professor put this challenge to the hivemind recently:
“I have been teaching headline writing the same way for decades and I think headlines have changed drastically in the last 10 years and no longer are we writing headlines the same way as sentences with a noun and a verb, but we are writing things that are more like teasers, invitations and clickable phrases. Does anyone have any material on how to write headlines for digital media (not print)? I need to update what I am teaching my practicum and journalism students.”
As I’ve always said, the blog is about what you need, when you need it, so here goes our look into the world of headlines for digital media:
THINGS THAT ARE THE SAME:
A number of things that we tend to think of when we look at traditional headlines remain valuable in writing digital media headlines. In looking into a number of media outlets and organizations that are working on headlines or studying them, here are some things that they are pitching for today’s writers that should look familiar to those of us old enough to remember the 1980s well:
- Short and Simple/Clear and Concise: Depending on which way you want to play this, the authors of these suggestions are trying to get at the same basic thing: Make sense for your readers and don’t screw around while doing it. I’m more of a fan of “clear and concise,” in that clarity and simplicity aren’t always the same thing and in most cases it’s better to be clear than simple. Still, the idea is all about not wasting your reader’s time or space on their screens.
- Accuracy above all else: If it’s not right, it doesn’t matter. That means it’s important to do your research on the topic, read the story fully, understand what the words you are using mean and double/triple/quadruple check your head for any mistakes before you push the big red button.
- Concrete nouns and vigorous verbs: As much as passive voice has a space in headlines in print (Kennedy killed; Trump elected president), you get a little more room in digital heads to work in noun-verb-object format and really nail down those first two items.
- Answer “Why do I care?” above all else: If people don’t know why they should care about something, they’re not going to pay attention to it. In some cases, it’s an easy sell, while in other cases, you have to rub their nose into it like you’re training a dog that keeps pooping in the house, but it needs to be there in a meaningful way.
Consider the headline that just showed up in my feed while writing this:
US House passes funding bill to avert government shutdown
It hits most of the marks pretty simply: Short/simple, (9 words, 57 spaces including blanks) accurate, (House passed the bill, it was a funding bill, without it we would likely shut down the government) concrete noun/vigorous verb, why you care (no government shut down)
Now consider these other ones:
House passes short-term funding bill to prevent a shutdown before the election
House sends government funding bill to Trump to avert shutdown ahead of Midterms
Congress passes funding bill to avoid October shutdown, pushing fight past midterms
U.S. House Passes Homeland Security Funding Bill Ending Shutdown For All Department Of Homeland Security Agencies Except ICE and CBP
The verb in three of the four alternatives is the same (passes), with three of the four focusing on the House (vs. Congress). The alternatives tend to focus on the election while the original didn’t. All are longer than the original, but each has something more than the original included in there (in the case of that last one, way, way, way too much…)
THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT:
The digital world gives us several challenges that are crucial to be aware of when we’re moving away from print heads.
SIZE, IN A DIFFERENT WAY, DOESN’T MATTER: We talked about the importance of keeping things short in both digital and traditional headlines. However, there’s another size issue we need to consider. In newspapers, we refer to headline copy as “the big type,” as it was traditionally larger than body copy and the idea was that the bigger the story, the bigger the headline size. Look at some of the headlines written when World War II ended and you get the idea.
The end of World War II was a big enough deal to cover everything above the fold (and at least an inch or two below it) with two letters and a hyphen.
In the digital realm, size doesn’t matter in terms of the font, because search engines and news aggregators treat all words exactly the same. They don’t stop and say, “Oh, wow! This headline is huge! I better move it up in my results list.”
PEOPLE ARE ATTUNED TO HYPE SO AVOID IT: Like most things we are inundated with, people have gotten over being enticed or impressed with “EST” claims. THE BEST BRAND! THE FASTEST WAY TO MEET WOMEN! THE CHEAPEST AIRFARE IN THE WORLD!
In fact, using this approach will actually activate defenses of readers who will now be less likely to trust you and will be more likely to push back against you. It’s like when your lazy stoner roommate comes to you and says, “Hey, I want you to know I just did everyone’s dishes, cleaned the bathroom and put in a little extra for rent this month.” If your Spidey Sense isn’t going off at that point, something is wrong with you.
FOCUS ON “U” ELEMENTS: To generally write effective headlines, experts at American Writers and Artists offer the “4 U” approach:
- Be USEFUL to the reader,
- Provide him with a sense of URGENCY,
- Convey the idea that the main benefit is somehow UNIQUE; and
- Do all of the above in an ULTRA-SPECIFIC way.
Beyond the maxims and cute little clusters of advice, however, headline writing comes down to applying the basic skills you’ve learned within your writing classes to this point. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty stuff and look at some key ways to do this:
Identify your point in six words or less: One of the best bits of advice I have been given about writing is to boil everything you are doing down into one simple, declarative statement before you begin. If you can’t do that, you don’t know what you’re doing yet, and you need to go back to the drawing board. The more sure you are of the point you want to make, the easier this is and the more clearly you can do this. When you are kind of all over the place, you don’t know what you’re trying to say in the headline. When that happens, it’s probably safe to assume you’re going to be all over the place when it comes to everything else as well.
Start with a few words that define what you’re trying to accomplish. Don’t worry if they don’t form a perfect noun-verb-object structure. Also don’t worry if you’re not using declarative statements at this point. As you will learn later, these variables take on different values in your writing here than they have in everything else you’ve written to this point.
- Custard is superior to ice cream
- Write a better blog post
- Study more effectively for finals
- Avoid 8 a.m. classes
- Is 4-wheel-drive worth it?
- Selena Gomez or Taylor Swift?
In each case, we’ve identified a lane we intend to drive in and we did it in less than six words. This means we focused. Some focus could be better. “What does “worth it” mean?” or how are we comparing these singers? It’s all not perfect, but it gets us off the tee and into the middle of the fairway.
Usability experts talk about the 3 and 3 rule, which states that people scan headlines in the same way they scan text: They basically catch on to the first three words you write and the last three words you write. In the middle is kind of a mess of letters that they’ll go back to if the first three and last three words grab them.
With that in mind, you want to start strong and end strong on your headlines for the digital media world. If you’re lucky and keeping things tight, the middle is tiny compared to the first three and last three words. If you go back to the example head, you’ll see a good example of how this works:
- Front 3: US House passes
- Back 3: Avert government shutdown
If we dodged “US” it might be a bit stronger with “House passes funding” so, that’s something else to think about.
Focus on benefits: When you are doing feature pieces, particularly those in the “how to” range, you want people to see your story as the solution to all their problems.
People will smartly employ aggressive attention filters while scanning headlines and you’ll get through that filter much more easily if you spell out your benefits rather than imply them slyly in a nuanced fashion. The big type is supposed to hit you in the head with a hammer, so make sure it does.
Ask yourself, “What possible good will come to my reader from spending time with this thing that I’m writing?” Then focus on that:
- Dinner for a king on a peasant’s paycheck
- Save time studying for finals
- Build your savings account without depriving yourself
- Avoid stupid Facebook arguments with redneck friends
- Learn why Putin is your friend
In many cases, the idea of “how to” is implied in there while in other cases, it’s just about learning something you need to know. However, the goal is to really tell people, “This has value. Read me.”
Pick words other people would pick: The easiest way to be found is to put yourself out there in a way that people would look for you. Let’s say your roommate had a really rough night and threw up in the kitchen sink before going to bed. You wake up the next morning and find this disaster of Jagermeister and Taco Bell has coagulated in your sink and has somehow after about 30 seconds of trying to run the garbage disposal, it stops and you’ve got no idea what went wrong, but you still have a mess on your hands.
You can’t call the landlord and you don’t have money for a plumber, what are some words you would choose to google to get you out of this jam? (garbage disposal, sink, plug, stuck, broken, fix MORE).
The point is, you wouldn’t Google “Lousy roommate” and “food death spiral in the sink” even though those would likely be the first words out of your mouth in describing this disaster to anyone who would listen to you. Those other words are what you need to get out of this jam.
In many cases, we would call the words you would pick out keywords or SEO-driven search terms. What you need to do is figure out what words go with your topics as part of the headline. In marketing, people often refer to these kinds of terms as part of a word bank or a brand dictionary, but either way, you want to find them and use them. Basically, pick words other people are going to pick.
Follow the formula: Certain headlines match up with certain types of digital pieces, much in the same way that certain topics lend themselves to certain types of stories and blog posts. Here are some examples of what I mean:
- Instructional post: “How to avoid talking politics with racist relatives at the holidays.”
- Listicle post: “10 things only children of the 1980s will understand about watching movies.”
- Profile post: “The Finnish Farm Boy who held the Russian Army at bay for six months.”
- Analysis post: “A deeper look at why US/Iran nuclear deal will lead to Armageddon” or “Five things the Iranians didn’t ask for in the nuclear deal but should have.”
- Cheat Sheet: “A helpful series of MS Word quick-keys that will speed up your typing.”
Certain words match up with certain topics: Numbers with lists, “how to” with instructions, “helpful” or “easy” or “simple” with cheat-sheets. Analyses rely on “deeper” or “smarter” or what have you. When you think of the types of posts you read, you can now see how the words match up with the types of posts.
Lenka Istvanova analyzed blogs that got the most clicks based on headlines and found a simple formula that tends to relate to most of the things we want to see in a headline:
Numbers + Adjective + Target Keyword + Rationale + Promise
Here are a few general applications of those items:
Ten Simple Dating Tips for People Who Want to Avoid Gold Diggers
Five Strong Resume Words Job Seekers should Use to Rise to the top of the Pile
One Difficult Thing Overweight People Should Do Every Day to Avoid Giving up Pizza
Seems ridiculous, but it really does work. Keep in mind, the formula can shift based on what you plan to do or what topic you plan to cover.
