Headlines are created for the purpose of grabbing the reader by the figurative shirt collar and demanding their attention. A good headline is essential in making sure readers complete the entire article, advertisement, brochure, what have you. When creating effective headlines, there are several tactics that can be put into play.
One thing you can do is to create a headline that, as mentioned earlier, piques the reader’s curiosity. You can do this by asking a question or making a statement that some may consider controversial, others outlandish, but definitely not boring. Using word play, alliteration and take-off on familiar phrases helps in creating eye-catching and amusing headlines. But when using pop culture references, you want to use references that are not too obscure, because if your headlines are shrouded with overly high-brow humor or word play, they may not even be read at all!
The headline has to be coined in such a way that it provides an answer to the reader asking What’s in it for me? You want to focus on the benefits this time around. Your needs may vary, but perhaps your best bet would be to use the headline as a solution to a problem. Always keep the headline as sweet and short as possible. How short would be seven words or less. This is because shorter headlines are punchier and easier to read.
Always say the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth in your headlines. It is very important that you provide an article that is befitting to the headline of the article. This is because on reading the headline, the reader will be expecting a story, and if the story produced is something completely different, it is most likely that the reader will feel cheated. Make sure that the first word of the headline is capitalized, as should all the other proper nouns in the headline. Chances are you would lose your readers (and the uniformity of your headline) by capitalizing every word.
Before we let you off, let us quickly take you back to the basics of sentence structure, as effective headlines tend to be those written in the active voice and present tense of verbs. Verbs imply action, and thus make for good headlines. Unless you are asked to do it differently, your headline should be located right smack dab at the top left corner of your page. You want to be careful when dealing with verb tenses – use past tense for the past perfect participle, present tense for an immediate past event and future tense for events that have yet to happen. The punctuation to be used in headlines is straightforward, nothing special. Instead of using double quotes for copy, use single quotes for the headline, and periods should only be used for abbrev. – okay, abbreviations. Make it a point to never split verb pieces in between lines of the headlines or ending lines with prepositions. This results in unwieldy headlines. Keep these pointers in mind, and proceed in producing effective headlines for your articles!
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