Do you have a content writer agonizing over the perfect headline for your company weblog? If you’ve been blessed (or cursed!) by a self-proclaimed perfectionist, you’ll find that agonizing to be a common ailment. Because if crafting pithy, attention-grabbing headlines wasn’t enough work, they now have to write said headlines with SEO tactics in mind.
Like ours, for instance. 3 keywords CAN make a sentence and get the web crawlers creeping across your web content.
Yes, Google dictates the way we live our lives and sell our products and spread our messages, but really, this isn’t news for anyone anymore. Did you know that Google only reads the first 65 characters of every headline? You may include more characters if you’d like to, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be read or acknowledged.
But feel free to ignore the pressure we just piled on. Clearly, attention and web-crawler grabbing headlines can be written every day. Just ask the New York Times. However, if either you or your content writers haven’t been trained at a journalism school, read on.
1. Clarity and brevity Keep your headlines clear and concise. Remember: 65 characters or less!
2. Include keywords in headlines “Flourless Chocolate Cake” reads much better than “A cake with melted butter and chocolate”.
3. As with all things well written, write with a genuine voice. In other words, make a concerted effort to not sound like an ad.
4. Remember Simplicity Headlines need to be easy reads and serve as snapshots of the article. Distill your headlines until you’re left with the essence of the message. “Catchy marketing headlines” for example.
Have you run across any memorable headlines lately? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!