The Best Headlines: Short and Simple
Writers generally suck at headline writing, according to new research that reveals what works best
A headline has one goal: Get people to read the story. Sure, it must also be accurate and honest, a promise to be fulfilled, but those are best practices. And yes, a headline should be clear and concise, and it might even be creative. Those are strategies and tactics. But the goal of a headline, its purpose, its job, is to sell the story. End of story.
There is no one right way to craft a headline. Long, clever headlines can be fun and effective. But long headlines can lose focus, and cleverness can obfuscate meaning. Your potential readers are busy people, and time is a precious commodity, so you need to know what the point of your story is and get to it.
Or: Write short and simple headlines.
It’s age-old advice in journalism and media: Extra words, complex terms and any sort of puffery just gets in the way. And it’s advice that writers frequently ignore, partly because they don’t see headlines the same way readers do. In short: Writers are often lousy headline writers.
New research out today proves all this to be true.
