Five tips for internet headline writing

In today's Digital Newsroom workshops at UCLan we've been discussing the top tips for internet headline writing, based on this article by Jakob Nielsen.

Having read through the article, and working with Olivia, we've come up with five tip-top top tips for internet headline writing.

1. Use as few words as possible - Headlines are meant to be brief, so that you can get the picture quickly, like in this headline. It tells you everything in five-words, although I suppose one of them is hyphenated.

2. Make every word mean something - Headlines cannot waste words. That means no adjectives, no 'the' or 'a' or 'be'. Take this headline. It's a quote, so every word counts there, and it doesn't even bother to say 'Prime Minister,' it instead says 'PM' to save even more space. Not an ounce of fat.

3. Reveal as much information as possible - A headline should tell you all you need to know, as this headline about a bombing in the Pakistan branch of the UN indicates. I've heard nothing about this story - mainly because my housemate Olivia stole my paper this morning - but that headline has told me virtually everything about the basics of the story in six words.

4. Search engine optimisation - This is apparently a point of contention for many papers, a source of pride to not need to be 'search engine friendly,' but using key words that'll be virtually unique to your headline will make it a lot easier for your article or story to show up. This is why band names like "A" are stupid because of being virtually impossible to find on Google, whereas searching for The Mad Capsule Markets, you know exactly what you're going to get. Those may not be headlines, but you get the point.

5. Headlines should be understandable out of context - For an example of this, look no further than the title of this very post. You're at no loss for knowing what this post is about, all the information is there and you know exactly what's contained within. If you don't deliver on what you promise in a headline, your readership will dwindle as people stop believing your headlines.