How to Write Better Headlines

22-05-2013 by Ailsa Williams
A good headline can serve several purposes. Of course it should always grab your reader's attention and pull them into your copy. But in doing so, it might also preview the story you want to tell.

It could let your reader know what they're going to get or what you're promising them (advice, hints and tips, life-changing information). It might entertain, provoke or challenge, in the best tabloid tradition. It could arouse curiosity.

Depending on your voice and style, it might need to be factual and specific or give you the opportunity to be quirky and creative.

Whatever the purpose of your headlines, your aim is the same: to stop the reader in their tracks, engage them and steer them into your content - whether it's a news story, a feature article, a marketing email, a report, a press release or a piece of web copy.

You are striving for the same effect as a book title that makes you reach up to the shelf without knowing any more than what can read on the spine, or the name of a film which catches your eye as you skim the listings.

A good headline is a combination of words that works as a signpost or an invitation - even a command - to read on.

If the subject is practical, your choice of words will reflect that and set your reader's expectations accordingly. If you are writing web content that needs to be optimised for search engines, your headline must include key words and phrases guaranteed to drive relevant traffic to your site. If you have licence to be more creative, on the other hand, you can harness the power of alliteration, play with puns, use words that rhyme, or exploit surprising facts and figures in a sensational way.

Ten tips for successful headline writing.

1. Brainstorm. Sum up the subject of your content in a phrase. Write it at the top of a blank sheet of A4 paper. Now write down all the related words you can think of, starting with three-letter words, rising to four, five and so on. Force yourself to keep going until you 've filled the page. On another blank sheet, play with combinations of your newly-gathered words. Be as random as you like to begin with, then narrow your focus.

2. Use specific adjectives that give your reader precise images, rather than vague or general words. Avoid imprecision. Words like very, really, incredibly, vastly, greatly or terribly will clutter a headline without adding any genuine context or meaning.

3. If you can, cut the jargon - especially off-putting acronyms, which often look ugly and jarring.

4. Keep punctuation to a minimum, as it can clutter the overall effect of a headline. Dashes and quotes are sometimes useful. Exclamation marks should be used with great restraint to maximise any impact they might have.

5. Use active sentence structures. This will keep your key words to the start of the headline, where they are more likely to grab attention - and to the left of the screen: an important consideration for web headlines, which are more likely to be scanned than read formally.

6. Write headlines in the present tense. This will help to bring the story to life rather than consign it to the graveyard of yesterday's news.

7. Ditch formal sentence structures if you can hang your content on a compelling image or idea. Consider using a label-style headline instead: The World's Youngest Millionaire; My Greatest Regret; Your Big Chance...

8. Remember that phrases such as 'How to... ' and 'Three ways to...' are powerful incitements to read because they promise specific takeaways for the reader.

9. Anticipate your reader 's questions and use the headline to answer them: why are you telling me about product x? Because you deserve a better experience

10. Promise a revelation. It's a teasing headline strategy but it 's a great way to hook readers in: At last, you can give them the inside info they've been waiting for... The Secrets of Successful Headlines Revealed

If you want to develop your headline-writing technique, the LCMJ runs a two-day Introduction to Sub-Editing course.

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How to Write Better Headlines

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