Writing headlines for Google, and your readers

The New York Times looks at how news sites are rethinking their approach to headlines in order to improve search engine listings and click-throughs by readers from search engines.

"Newspaper headlines and the presentation of stories in print are in a sense marketing devices to bring readers to your story," said Michael Schudson, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who is a visiting faculty member at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. "Why not use a new marketing device appropriate to the age of the Internet and the search engine?"

On a related note, Steffen Fjaervik did a study for large Norwegian news site a couple of years ago and found that 12 percent of the headlines appearing in lists were useless. "They did not give me a chance to decide whether I was interested or not, he says on Poynter.org. "Displaced from the original article, they were of no value.... So if there is a choice between boring and useless, I suggest going for boring."

Apr 12, 2006 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)

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