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Web headings that work
On the Web, you live or die by your headings (or headlines as they are called in newspapers and magazines). A good one makes it easier for readers to find your article, and much more likely that they will read what you have written. A bad heading ensures that few, if any, readers will find your text at all, and that those who do will be unlikely to read further.

People don't begin to read your web article by accident. First they have to find it. Potential readers will usually come to your article either from a crowded webpage—where your article is just one of several clickable elements—or worse still, from a page full of search engine results. In either case, all the reader sees is the heading and the first sentence or so from the article (if they’re lucky). If your heading doesn't grab them, you lose them—probably forever.

Writing headings for web articles is a craft. Sometimes it almost seems to be an art. To learn from examples of heading writing at its best, look at top quality advertising campaigns, front-page headlines in tabloid newspapers, and the cover lines of successful magazines. Madison Avenue's best advertising slogans succeed so well, they enter our common language. Think of Nike's "Just Do It" line.

Editors of tabloid newspapers are among the best of all heading writers, since they know that nothing will do a better job of selling their papers than a short, compelling headline in big type. Two famous tabloid headlines: The New York Daily News, reporting on former US president Gerald Ford's decision to deny emergency funds to New York City during a fiscal squeeze:

Ford To City:
Drop Dead!

Or the New York Post's account of a gruesome strip-club murder:

Headless Body
In Topless Bar

Magazine editors face a similar challenge. The would-be magazine buyer is looking at a rack of dozens or even hundreds of magazines, and makes a purchasing decision in minutes or seconds. The cover line is the first—and often the only—thing the potential buyer reads.

In 1998, a group of Fortune magazine editors spent 45 minutes debating the “cover line” for the magazine's annual retirement guide. They came up with a two-word headline that drove sales up an incredible 51 percent, making it the most popular issue in the magazine's 70-year history and increasing revenue by hundreds of thousands of dollars:

RETIRE RICH

These examples of winning headline-writing share common attributes that are all applicable to the Web. Let’s look at a couple of them here:

Headings should be short and direct
Remember that web readers are usually looking for something, and the more efficiently you tell them what it is you've got, the better your heading will work. To be effective and attract the reader, headings should use “keywords.“ Studies have shown that people who use search engines predominantly type in one to two keywords for their search, rather than sentences or phrases. So, if you're writing about Microsoft's earnings, whatever else you do, use both words—“Microsoft” and “earnings”— in your heading!

Never try to be indirect and cute. Many writers and editors make this mistake, and write headings such as this, taken from a brokerage house report about technology-stock prices:

Much Ado about Nothing

Erudite? Your call. Amusing? Only if you read the first section of the article, and then only mildly so. But such a heading guarantees that people looking for information about tech stock prices will never see the article. Try typing that heading into a search engine such as AltaVista. You’ll get a million results, nearly all of them concerning drama and literature.

Use powerful language
Good headings share another attribute: Nearly all have some kind of power in their language. Try not to undersell your content. If you're writing about the biggest something, say so! If profits have plunged, don't say they've decreased. Use the active rather than the passive voice, and try to use a strong verb—say "Ad Agencies Cut Jobs," not "Layoffs announced by some agencies."

But don't deceive your reader either. If your article is about an incremental improvement in browser software, don't call it "The Browser Wars Erupt Again." Web readers are smart and unforgiving. The merest whiff of a bait-and-switch—promising one thing and then delivering another--sends them instantly to the Back button, and they'll stay away from your site forever.


Next: Use subheads
Previous: Be direct

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