SEO: Pitfalls of Print Headlines on the Web – Dr. Naveel Shows You How to Say it
|
Written By Dr. Naveel | July 9, 2008 | Share This
|
|
The biggest SEO opportunity and challenge for any publishing website is to understand the difference in writing for print and writing for the web. Typically, publishing websites port over print headlines directly to the web unchanged. Sadly, this results in large amounts of great content that will never be clicked on or found through search engines. At the same time, after years of writing in a certain style no publishing organization wants to be told they now have to change to accommodate the web — they often feel that they know their audience better than anyone, and they do — offline. It may be a touchy subject, but publishers should consider the many benefits of using more literal headlines on the web.
Why should I read your article?
Let’s say I’m on my way to work and I’m browsing through the latest Wall Street Journal. I’m not necessarily looking for anything in particular – just trying to keep up with the latest business news. I might have a favorite section that I read on a regular basis. Mostly, however, I’m skimming the paper for articles that catch my attention. In the Opinion section I come across an article titled: “$600 Million Baby”. Below that is the capsule: “A new tax on Fannie Mae to fund Congress’s political buddies.” Blasted politicians! The headline grabbed my attention and the capsule gave me more info for context. I have the full article in front of me and I see it’s a quick read so I check it out.
Now let’s say I’m visiting the Wall Street Journal website. Essentially, I’m doing the same thing – scanning the homepage for articles that grab my attention. What does our article look like on the Wall Street Journal homepage?
There is simply a link that says “$600 Million Baby”. Is the article about someone’s pet project, an expensive genetically modified baby, the Million Dollar Man’s offspring or what? Who knows, and more importantly who cares? In the split second available to grab the reader’s attention online an ambiguous headline with scant context will most likely be ignored. Seeing this headline link in search results or RSS feeds would be even more confusing. If no one knows what the article is about, why would they click on it?
Can I even find your article?
Now imagine that I’m at a search engine instead of the Wall Street Journal website. Let’s say I’m interested in reading about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, affordable housing, the mortgage bailout or something similar (all topics covered in the article). It stands to reason I will type in those kinds of search terms in Google, Yahoo, Live or whichever search engine I’m using. This Wall Street Journal article might have exactly the content I’m looking for, but the chances of it showing up in search results for those queries are slim. Search engines will naturally rank articles that mention the relevant terms in the headline first. What does the above article tell search engines?
Anchor text pointing to article: “$600 Million Baby”
Title tag: “$600 Million Baby”
Headline: “$600 Million Baby”
The Wall Street Journal has essentially communicated to search engines that this article is about a high priced baby. Without even doing the research, I’m going to go out on a limb and say there is virtually no search volume on that.
Consider Being Literal
Although being literal with web headlines might cramp your writing style a bit there is one undeniable benefit: more readers – both from your site and from search engine results.
From a click-through and usability perspective if the reader understands what the article is about there is a greater chance of that article being read. A rule of thumb that Reprise tells all of its publishing clients is: Can you understand what the article is about based on the headline alone? On the web, that is often all the user sees before deciding to click through.
From a search engine optimization perspective if you’re using literal, descriptive language in the headline then most likely you are using the right keywords in the right places. This is going to help the article rank for relevant searches and capitalize on the wealth of readers that find content through search engines.
Topics: Publishing, SEO, Search: How-To |
Thinking alike. If anybody who wants to do link baiting it is essential to think from a reader’s perspective. Among all the articles that happen to be in my news reader certainly I won’t click through all the items.
Well formed title and keywords will both be crucial factors on the resulting traffic.
http://palapple.blogspot.com/2008/07/linkbaiting-making-perfect-link-bait.html
Good article bruv. I’ve got a news aggregation site and certainly am not bothered about some of the news link that appears on the site.
But the ‘war’ going on with regards to SEO is massive and the trends keep changing every now and then.
[…] page code improves website performance and SEO results. And as I pointed out in a previous post, writing for the web can make your content more attractive to search engines as well as to readers. SEO is not […]