You’ve written a press release, and now it’s time to formulate an attractive headline. Something that gets lots of people to click and also summarises the news item. What should you think about?
- Tell a story. The classic headline ‘Man bites dog’ causes the reader to start imagining the incident, and become curious about what really happened.
- Short. There are studies showing that a short headline gets more clicks. What’s more, the readers remember it better. No more than 50 characters including spaces is a good rule of thumb.
- Not ‘not’. Negations make many people a little confused, which is enough for some readers to move on to the next article instead.
- Simple words. The word ‘negations’ is not particularly good in headlines, for example.
- News value. The most obvious point is also the most difficult one. Describing what’s new and interesting in just a few words. Ask yourself what’s new, and take that as your starting point when you formulate the heading. The heading ‘Man bites dog’, as mentioned above, is good because it relates to something unusual having happened, while ‘Dog bites man’ describes a quite common event, and so is uninteresting.
We do, of course, have many more tips and ideas to offer at our PR agency. Get in touch with us!
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