Headlines are different online
The Problem
Here are some headlines from Melbourne’s Age newspaper recently:
- Tiny digger turns deserts into gardens
- Wedge politics
- You can’t hide when you seek
- Dreaming the next stage
- Look how she’s grown!
Can you see what’s wrong? These headlines are all fine in a printed paper, where they are in designated sections, accompanied by images and subheadings (ie context). For most websites, though, they simply wouldn’t work. And that includes the newspaper site that these headlines were reproduced on.
Why? Because headlines often appear out of context on websites; in lists of articles, archive pages and on internal and external search results pages.
Take another look, and imagine these headlines are a list of links to products or articles on your site. What are the links about? Why would a potential customer click on any one of them?
The Answer
Having read the newspaper stories, these would have been more useful and appropriate headlines:
- Bilby foraging creates nutrient-rich land
- Urban planning about-face on Green Wedge strategy
- Is Google too powerful?
- Calls for a national indigenous theatre company
- Justine Clarke hits big time with kids
The strategy is simple: link text should describe what the target content is about. Don’t be cute. Don’t be clever. Save that for the article itself.
Clicks will be more qualified; visitors will likely be actually interested in the content. Your users will love you, Google will love you. Everyone wins. And it’s a double-win for SERP (search engine results page) skimmers.
Not The Answer
Of course, you can go the other way, and totally disrespect your audience for the short-term benefit of cheap traffic. Australian media analysis TV program Media Watch reported an example from June 2009 where News Limited newspaper websites around the country featured a story titled ‘Missing baby found in Sandwich’.
The baby in question was only missing for a couple of hours, and was eventually found safe and well in Sandwich, Massachusetts.
Funny? Maybe. But how many readers who clicked the link were pleased with the punchline?
Saturday, 12. September 2009 19:12
One of the consistently biggest hits I get on my blog is for an article I wrote about the Finnish sauna tradition. It may have something to do with calling it Naked Sweaty Men. It’s a cheap piece of hit whoring though as the stats show that the average stay of these searchers is about 3 seconds. Easy come, easy go.
JohnSunday, 13. September 2009 1:24
Yes, that’s a good tip Mr HP. Of course, with a clever selection of non-copyrighted images borrowed from the web, you could bump that average stay from 3 seconds to around 50 seconds. Or 2 mins if the visitor wants to go twice.
katie cardiganMonday, 14. September 2009 0:51
Further to M Hackpackers comment. If you look at the top five stories in the travel sections of the Fairfax news sites (the Age, SMH, Brisbane Times and Perth…) you will find that at least one, often two, of the top five in each city has naked in the title. Now they’re going crazy for the naked stories. I guess you can’t say they’re not learning from their stats…
Misha KetchellMonday, 14. September 2009 12:20
There’s another example of an inept online headline on Media Watch tonight, this time to do with sex. Which seems to feature a lot in newspaper online headlines, apparently because newspapers want people to visit their sites when they’re looking for porn. Which might be a recipe to boost short term visitor numbers, but in the long term it’s a recipe for frustration. For all concerned.
JohnMonday, 14. September 2009 15:15
Mr Ketchell and Ms Cardigan, thanks for the thoughts and observations. So it seems it’s a bulk traffic versus targeted traffic issue. For sites full of annoying, intrusive advertising (such as most newspaper sites), a visit is a visit. Who cares about reputation, let alone readership! And, as Mr Hackpacker pointed out, the same rule seems to apply to blog traffic.
Let’s experiment. Please suggest a title for a forthcoming post on this blog. It needs to be vulgar and sexual, but not pornographic. It’d also help if I can write a meaningful post about it too. So come on punsters, whip out your double entendres and let’s feed the beast. Winner to receive something nice, but not too nice.
I’ll then update everyone on comparative traffic…
Misha KetchellMonday, 14. September 2009 15:41
That a job for a real sub, the sort who dreamt up “headless woman in topless bar”. But you can just be dumb and literal and get the job done. “Why naked women attract sex hits” has a few of the right words. Apart from “why”, of course.
ChrisMonday, 14. September 2009 16:32
How about “Crowe does nude Russelling”? Not sure what you’d write about though…
AmeliaTuesday, 15. September 2009 14:00
Rare Horny Bird Found in Bush
AmeliaTuesday, 15. September 2009 17:49
Actually, you don’t need suggestions from us. Just look at The Age for gold like this video headline: Bear Market Stripped Nude
janeThursday, 17. September 2009 13:04
i spent ages trying to come up with something where ‘mistakes’ could be equated to ‘enormous boobs’ or ‘sticky muffs’, but it was really a bit much of a stretch. i admit failure.
John FordWednesday, 30. September 2009 17:44
I bought a tap at the hardware store a while ago which had written on the tag: “Rough Stop Cock Brass Male”, which roughly translates to a brass stopcock with a rough surface and a male thread. It makes me think of gay porn, not plumbing hardware… Not a headline though…
JohnThursday, 1. October 2009 11:45
I think we have a winner! Mr Ford, come on down!
Friday, 9. October 2009 9:30
[…] time. In an earlier post, we learned that newspaper websites, bloggers and more were chasing traffic by using ambiguous, […]
Wednesday, 21. October 2009 11:31
Don’t mean to get all Media Watch on their asses but recently our good friends at The Age spruiked their Text Tales as “Marieke Hardy in Your Hand”. Is it just me or is that a little yuck?