Online magazines like DesignTaxi and news aggregator sites such as BuzzFeed and Huffinton Post use strangely formulaic headlines, typically including a keyword, a proper noun, a verb, and an adjective whilst avoiding simple connectives. It’s English, but not as we know it. In SEO terms the language is optimised to add ‘value’ to each headline.
It’s hard to imagine classic newspaper headlines such as the Sun’s 1992 headline ‘GOTCHA’ having the same impact as ‘Royal Navy Stealth Submarine Sinks Argentinian Cruiser in South Atlantic’.
Probably the best (worst?) example is the Daily Mail Online, where the inclusion of multiple keywords in the headline means the headlines have become almost as long as the stories themselves. It's clickbait in its purest form. The logical conclusion of this process is that the headline becomes the story, just a shrieking top-line opinion seeking an instinctive knee-jerk reaction from the comment trolls.
Surely we can write better than this.
The point of SEO is to provide sufficient context for search engines to rank the story as high as possible in the search results, relative to the value of the content.
Whilst search engine algorithms are constantly being tweaked, it’s generally accepted that an editor can improve the page ranking of a story by crafting the relationship between the headline, page title and meta description.
As well as describing the story, the title needs to include a proper name and a likely keyword that the reader might be using in their search (towards the front of the headline if possible). The page title can expand on the headline, for instance using a full name when the headline just uses a shorter, well-known, shorthand (eg. Diana / Diana, Princess of Wales), whilst the meta description can include more detail for the ‘snippet’ displayed underneath the link in the search results. All three elements should aim to match the words that users are likely to use in their search, and these search-optimised keywords should also be included in the opening paragraph of the story.
Thinking more widely about the utility of the headline, fitting it within 156 characters to read fully in the search results makes it easier to circulate on social networks, and including a personal pronoun in the headline also improves the chances of readers sharing your story.
(There are of course other factors in SEO, such as unique links to the story and referring links from the story, but these are not necessarily part of the headline construction).
In 2009, usability expert Jakob Nielsen introduced the concept of writing short, snappy SEO friendly headlines that “…must be absolutely clear when taken out of context” and cited the BBC's website as a best practice example of headline-writing “…offering remarkable headline usability."
Nielsen claimed that BBC headlines have the following characteristics:
- Short, typically 5 words or less
- Information-rich
- Include keywords
- Understandable, even out of context
- Predictable/match for reader expectations
- Long, sometimes to the point of being rambling and incoherent
- Emotion-rich
- Few or no keywords
- Typically non-contextual
- Use shock or emotional language
The late advertising and copywriting genius, David Ogilvy, said that "On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.”
The point of a headline is to draw the reader into a story that they might not otherwise have read. The skill of the web subeditor is in knowing their audience so well that they can add their editorial tone of voice to the headline, whilst still capturing the imagination of the reader.
And if you can turn your headline into a pun, then so much the better.
The Scottish Sun’s ‘Super Caley go ballistic Celtic are atrocious’ is held up as one of the all time classic newspaper headlines.
And, although no one knew it at the time, it’s SEO friendly.
