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We Blog About Headlines. What Comes Next Will Amaze You

By Georgy Cohen on January 21, 2014

Dewey Defeats Truman headline
An headline is an opportunity. Make the most of it.

My first job out of college was working for the Boston Globe’s website, which afforded me the opportunity to write a lot of headlines. Perhaps the best (or worst) headline I ever wrote, after a Boston Celtics victory, was “Pierce nets 40 as Celtics pierce Nets.” Clever, eh?

“Clever” could be an apt description for many headlines you read. The goal of the headline is to tell you what a story is about, establish its tone, and entice you to read it in full. Especially in the case of softer news, headline writers often rely on puns or plays on words, linguistic tropes, or otherwise try to encapsulate the emotional thrust of the story in a few choice words.

The very concept of headlines is getting a lot of attention lately thanks to viral content sharing sites like Upworthy, which have made a pageview mint on the backs of headlines like “If This Video Makes You Uncomfortable, Then You Make Me Uncomfortable” and “9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact.” (This very blog post’s title is an homage to these types of headlines.)

More about the Upworthy approach to headlines in a little bit, but I do believe that the debate it is prompting is valuable because it reminds us how important headlines are. We agonize over email newsletter subject lines and 140 characters of tweet text, but do we give due attention to the headlines we use in news stories, feature packages, press releases, and the like?

Headlines do a lot of work for us, so are we putting in the work to ensure they are appropriate and effective?

The Anatomy of a Headline

Oberlin news headline

On the Oberlin News Center homepage, theses headlines benefit from some descriptive text.

The job of a headline is more than an exercise in poetic license—it has a lot of responsibilities. So when we dash off a cute or poignant headline for a story, are we considering all the places that headline is going to go? We are used to seeing headlines in the context of a story, with imagery, a secondary headline (subhead), and story text all there to support what the headline is saying. But that is just one possible context. For instance, it could end up:

  • On a story page, with subhead, photo, and story text
  • In a list of sidebar story links
  • In a teaser with just the subhead
  • In a homepage carousel with just an image

How might this play out? Let’s look at this headline from a news story at Oberlin, “A Familiar Program.” On the article page, I need to read the full (though short) article for the headline to make sense. When featured on the homepage, the same headline has an accompanying subhead to help clarify the its meaning. The URL, interestingly, appends the name of the story subject.

And here’s one from Tufts: “Crossing Borders.” This title could mean anything, and the accompanying photo doesn’t clarify much. But with the subhead, the meaning becomes clearer. However, in the related stories sidebar of the “Crossing Borders” story, I noticed this story, “The Most Important Disease You’ve Never Heard Of.” In this case, I don’t need photos or subheads; based on the headline alone, I want (need?) to read that story.

Tufts news headline

Without page context, this headline doesn’t say much. The one on the right, however…

At Vanderbilt, the headlines avoid coyness and cut straight to the chase, as in the case of “New head football coach Derek Mason sets path to greatness”. University of Virginia takes a similar approach, as evidenced by “Inspired by the World, Chris Li Turns Nature Into Nanotechnology.” In both instances, the headline is the same on both the news homepage and the article page, as well as the title text.

As usual, I like what’s happening on Johns Hopkins’ Hub. This story, with the on-page headline (as well as title text) “’Each of us is a leader,’ Hrabowski says at JHU ceremony honoring legacy of MLK Jr.,” has a short homepage headline with just the key quote, “‘Each of us is a leader.’” The URL, however, adopts an SEO-friendly “slug” style as typically seen in the Associated Press: hrabowski-mlk-commemoration. (Vanderbilt does the same.)

Dewey Defeats Truman headline

At Vanderbilt, the headlines avoid coyness and cut straight to the chase.

When crafting a headline, your concerns must extend beyond the enlarged text at the top of the page. Headline text is not decorative; it is functional. That means taking search engine optimization into account. How is your headline adapted for your title text? Or your URL structure?

I’ve always liked the way ESPN handles headlines. Whereas the on-page headline for this story is “Record 98 underclassmen declare,” with the page header of “NFL Draft 2014” giving me some sense of what we’re talking about, the title text (important for SEO) reads “Record 98 underclassmen in NFL draft pool,” and this text is reflected in the article URL (also important for SEO), as well.

(Speaking of SEO, where can you find inspiration for better headlines? Marketer Christopher Penn offers three suggestions: Google Trends, Google Webmaster Tools, and question-and-answer sites like Quora.)

Think about best practices for on-page heading tags (H1, H2, etc.). You want to reinforce keywords and meaning in a way that makes sense to both people and search engines. The same concept applies to headlines.

A headline is not the same as a webpage title, a page name in a URL, an email subject line, or a tweet (more on tweets later). But on today’s web, you can’t craft a headline (or, as Johns Hopkins shows us, a couple of contextual headline options) without taking these other formats into account.

The Upworthy Uprising

Upworthy-style headlines have become a pop culture mainstay, achieving meme status and prompting the creation of an Upworthy headline generator, parodies via Twitter and College Humor, a game to pick which headline is fake or from Upworthy, and an XKCD comic.

But to the editors of Upworthy, headlines are no laughing matter. In fact, Upworthy writers famously draft 25 headlines for each story. Not a bad idea! And we can actually learn a lot from the way they approach headline writing.

Upworthy’s guidelines for writing effective headlines: (see slide 214):

  • Don’t give it all away in the headline
  • Don’t give it all away in the excerpt, share image, or share text
  • Don’t form an opinion for the end user
  • Don’t bum people out
  • Don’t hypersexualize your headlines
  • When drafting headlines, don’t over think it
  • Be clever, but not too clever

“Headlines are an important means to an even more important end: drawing massive amounts of attention to topics that really matter,” Upworthy editors wrote in a December 2013 blog post. Upworthy headlines rely on what they call the “curiosity gap.” (see slide 21), landing somewhere between “too vague and I don’t want to click” and “too specific and I don’t need to click.”

But, they cautioned in the blog post, “Upworthy posts don’t go viral because people click — Upworthy posts go viral because people share.” In addressing concerns about using “clickbait” headlines, which oversell content with over-the-top headlines, the editors say headlines alone don’t drive those pageviews. “By far the most important factor in getting people to share a post is the actual quality of the content in the eyes of the community.”

As I mentioned above, headlines bear a lot of responsibility on behalf of a story. But they cannot sell a false bill of goods. Last January, when Liz Gross tweeted that one of her biggest pet peeves was a great headline that led to crappy content, I responded, “A headline is a promise.” Because it is.

The Social Headline

Much of what we apply when crafting good headlines is also applied in the service of a good tweet. We want to be pithy, informative, and alluring. The folks who man the @nytimes Twitter account shared some of their insights in a recent Nieman Lab blog post. One example they mentioned illustrated how a slight variation of a headline can yield a highly successful tweet.

He got kicked out of both Nirvana and Soundgarden. Then he became a war hero http://t.co/LD8oaVsLAm

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 7, 2013

This is an important point. For years, many in higher ed have decried the broadcast approach to Twitter and Facebook, which is often constituted of hitching an RSS feed of articles to an account and letting the feed fill with context-free headlines. What does a tweet with the phrase “Crossing Borders” and a link even mean?

If you write your headlines as many newspapers do, in a shorthand style without important verbs or pronouns, they will look like gobbledygook to your followers. Remember the fundamental premise of social media: it’s a conversation. You don’t want your end of the dialogue to sound like “me Tarzan you Jane,” do you?

Upworthy headlines have also been criticized at times for giving away the bulk of the story arc. Interestingly, the Times social media staffers wrote, “readers don’t click on or retweet us when we’re being clever nearly as much as they respond to clearly stated tweets describing the meat of the stories they point to.” They continue:

“We also engage in the practice of being coy and trying to make readers curious enough to read a story. But even then we find that the best results were more direct and straight-forward about what the reader could expect after they clicked”

Stop What You’re Doing and Read the Conclusion to This Blog Post

How can we toe the line between cleverness and clarity? How can we stoke curiosity without obfuscating meaning? How can we craft one line capable of doing ten lines’ worth of work? This is the task before us when writing the not-so-humble headline.

What works? Use A/B testing and analytics to see which headlines are more effective in different contexts, or devise a usability testing approach to gauge user interest and comprehension of story headlines and teases. Either way, don’t take a headline for granted.

What’s your approach to writing effective headlines?

Filed Under: Archive Tagged With: audience, content creation, definitions, editorial planning, news, public relations, publishing, SEO, structured content, web writing

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About Georgy Cohen

Georgy Cohen is associate creative director, content strategy, at OHO Interactive in Cambridge, Mass.. Prior to OHO, she worked with a range of higher ed institutions, including stints at Tufts University and Suffolk University and as an independent consultant, on content strategy and digital communication initiatives.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Andrew Careaga says

    January 23, 2014 at 7:39 pm

    These 8 mind-blowing facts will restore your faith in the blogosphere

    But seriously, Georgy. Great post, and you put into words something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. (Actually, it’s coming up in a Friday Five, so stay tuned. What comes next may surprise or possibly infuriate you.)

    Reply
  2. jjj says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:37 pm

    很可能是因为患上了严重的产后抑郁症。说的是可能,也可能是脾气暴躁。

    Reply
  3. 朝阳网站建设 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:37 pm

    亲,我也是自己带孩子,没事带孩子出去逛逛,参加各种活动就会好点

    Reply
  4. 传奇五五五 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:38 pm

    泱泱大国 还要别人说 我们是跟屁虫 怕什么 男人还是女人?

    Reply
  5. 嘟嘟传奇 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:39 pm

    其实身体上的痛苦并不算什么了!重要的是心里的痛苦

    Reply
  6. 古交新闻网 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:39 pm

    麻烦你出来先把那些贪官牵出来吧,中国“森林”太复杂,不好抓

    Reply
  7. 昌平网站建设 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:40 pm

    高兴呀,兴奋,中国终于有自己的航母,,,,我为祖国骄傲,希望早日收腹台湾,,祖国加油呀,,,呵呵呵

    Reply
  8. 长春市隆兴伟业物流有限公司 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:45 pm

    我们都可以 我们不想在做孬种了 看着中央这样 我都想组织人马去打了 好不好呀

    Reply
  9. www.szgjp.com says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:45 pm

    最不喜欢中国的女店员,你长得不帅买东西她都不想理你。中国女人的素质太差了。

    Reply
  10. www.cnLianguo.com says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:47 pm

    借此为我们男人说一句,最大的痛苦就是选错了婚姻,最大的失败就是没挣到钱,所有请没结婚的男生们,睁大眼睛看清楚,把你的口袋装满她需要的,否则就和这男人一样窝囊。

    Reply
  11. 西城网站建设 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:47 pm

    现在科学己经发展到什么病都能治好吗?你在侮辱自己的智商!

    Reply
  12. www.wuqiao.net.cn says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:47 pm

    每年315都在打假但是并没有让国内的产品更好反而让消费者更加不信任。所以不是打假多了就是好事,当无假可打的时候才是好事啊!可是国情如此,官僚主义盛行,一时之间真的很难改变。

    Reply
  13. 上海新闻网 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    闫峰 : 在美国看病医生对病人要负责到底,病人有疑问病情时医生会很耐心给讲解的,可国内有些医生对病人态度真是不敢恭维一脸死爹么样,我要是刘先生不会样那医生看到明天太阳,手那样多少也叫残疾了还敢群欧病人,哥们你是男人呀,说得对!下次你去看病时,对排在你面前的病友说:医生对病人要负责到底,病人有疑问病情时医生会很耐心给讲解的,你详细问,医生详细答,一两个小时我可以等,不明白的医生再解释两小时

    Reply
  14. www.tanghainews.cn says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    对父母我不赞成用公筷,那样会破坏家庭气氛,在外和朋友同事吃饭建议用公筷,健康为主

    Reply
  15. 成都昌德装饰工程有限公司 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:49 pm

    洗洗就卫生了?不用消毒?你敢说你去过的饭店的东西全都消毒过?要是全消毒那得要多少消毒碗柜,不算碗筷。爱卫生也得看怎么爱法!太过矫情就惹人讨厌。我跟我前任老婆离婚就是受不了她的洁癖,据说她改嫁了又离了,那男的还是受不了。

    Reply
  16. www.nankangnews.cn says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:49 pm

    有些医生骗你一大堆钱看病,然后还治不好病,这样的医生法律也制裁不了,同情患者。

    Reply
  17. 九资河门户网 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:50 pm

    确实女人生孩子容易患上抑郁症的~但要学会控制自己~大多是来源以家庭的原根,,

    Reply
  18. www.pingshun.net.cn says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:50 pm

    但愿日本要是再侵略祖国的话 如果有人因此受伤害 到时你还能淡定的说 日 本 好

    Reply
  19. 满城新闻网 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:50 pm

    十二生肖全在医生手里,肿瘤 牛子 水花 侯子 发炎 流脓 高血压 鸭子 麻子 马子 扁囊体发炎 狼发炎 残疾 鸡 哑巴 爸 白带异常 袋鼠 子宫癌 矮子 狐臭 虎臭 手术 树 粉碎性骨折 水 感冒 赶猫 花柳病 花柳 脚气 脚妻 皮肤瘙痒 羊 皮肤金属化金 死亡 尸王 失明 死民 不多说了这就是医院。还有很多得去找

    Reply
  20. www.cdfsbz.com says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    说到底还是技术不够成熟,设计不够完美,做不到零风险,还需要努力投入,造出更加完善,高性能,低故障,能适应各种恶劣天气的飞行工具!

    Reply
  21. www.dfyz6789.com says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    在家中,除了身体有毛病外,可以用公筷,这也是避免互相传染。身体健康的就免了吧!这样会更体现出亲情。不要搞的在家中吃个饭还要那么约束。

    Reply
  22. 襄阳西继迅达电梯有限公司 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    如果中国的贪官把贪的钱都拿出来,可以建几十个航母战斗群。占领全球各大海域。就算不出去,足可以让中国的海域到处都是航母,到处都是战舰。

    Reply
  23. 房山网站建设 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    王先生打得好,顶你!为人民服务也是有底线的,对于人民中的坏人,不可留情。

    Reply
  24. 广州双城热恋创意文化传播有限公司 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    MD,老毛在的时候哪个敢在中国门前挑衅,看看现在,小日本都可以骑在你脖子上拉屎;老毛在的时候有几个敢贪污受贿的,发现直接枪毙,哪像现在,现在是富态日子过多了,都没有危机意识了,大家都随便了,贪污几十个亿小意思就算了,凡事都看开了……

    Reply
  25. sf666 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    在外面和不熟悉的人吃饭喜欢用公筷。如果在家里吃,就不喜欢用。

    Reply
  26. 东辽门户网 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    七八个人打你才打成这样?太假了吧来人,再给我打!

    Reply
  27. www.yongjinews.cn says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    振奋人心的消息,兴奋的忘记吃饭了。啊,怎么一点也不饿?高兴的结果。

    Reply
  28. 广州新闻网 says

    March 9, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    中国人其实就是不能理解,花钱看不好病是个正常的事。这在于媒体总是说某神医,某国医大师的夸张宣传,其实医生也是人,没那么神,科学也没那么厉害……医生不只是说,其实真的是只要尽力就好…

    Reply

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