Secrets to Creating Great Headlines

by: Catherine Franz
By Catherine FranzGreat! You finished your piece and now need a headline.Usually headlines are less than ten words and need to beexpressed in short, expressive, active words. This providesquick focus and pull in. By waiting until you know what youare ending up with, it will save you time. You can give atemporary headline while drafting.If you have a good lead paragraph, you will find theheadline. If you want to intrigue or hook your readers, lookat the significant points instead. Which idea or thought canyou use as that hook.Here are some tips on how to write that headline:* Grab a highlighter and underline the nouns and key wordsin your lead paragraph.* From the key words, imagine yourself composing atelegram, and each word is costing you $10. Avoid articles-- A, An, The -- and prepositions -- On, Under, Beside, etc.* Substitute simple but effective synonyms to keywords. Say"polls" instead of "elections" or "go on" instead of"continue."* Write headlines that are simple and easy to read. Don'tuse heavy words. Use words that are short and familiar.* Directly give your story's main idea at the beginning ofyour headline.* Try and working in the main benefit the reader gets forreading further. Also, add another benefit in the leadparagraph, to keep them moving forward.* Use dynamic and powerful words. Not what you think ispowerful but what you reader is going to think as powerful.* Always be specific and avoid generalities. "Do this andyou will get this" needs to be specific to be believable.Provide examples or statistics. Give the result that isbelievable to the reader.* Only use a person’s name in the headline if they are wellknown. Provide a link to where someone can find out moreabout this person.* Repeating key words, using weak verbs such as a, an, is,are, or starting the line with a verb is not recommended.* If you have to use abbreviations, do so only when theabbreviation is commonly known to your main target market.Create a footnote for a definition or place theabbreviations in parentheses.* Use numbers only if important and write them in figures-- use B for billion and M for million.* Even if your statistics are out standing you might nightwant to state them. If they are too unbelievable, peoplewill not buy.These thirteen tips are not all inclusive to all the tipsand techniques you can use to create headlines. When Iwrote these I wanted to convey some suggestions for thefrequent mistakes I see made or unique recommendations thatwill get your headline noticed quickly and build curiosity.