Blog: Pete Loshin

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Web Spurs Move to Useful (but Boring) Headlines

The best way to generate web traffic these days is to place high in the search engines; the BBC reports that Search users 'stop at page three'. Most users expect to find the answers to their questions on the first page of search results, so if you want to be the page they click to, you've got to score high.

A pretty obvious way to score high, get views, and retain readers is to use headlines that are clear, relevant, and likely to accurately reflect the contents of your pages. So, according to this note on Slashdot, This Boring Headline is Written for Google, the New York Times reports that website editors are increasingly writing headlines that are clear, relevant and accurately reflect the contents of the articles they top.

What a great idea! It makes sense, and the news isn't that fresh. It makes sense to write and print catchy, intriguing, funny or odd headlines when you need to snag readers who are browsing headlines at the corner newsstand; when your readers are brought to you by Google.com or some other search engine, you'd better write a headline that will be seen, no matter how boring.

So being clever, sarcastic, funny or even literate is no longer a requirement for headline writers. It's good to be getting back to the fundamentals of journalism. Writing a good headline is hard.

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