It’s incredible how wrong one story can be,...

It’s incredible how wrong one story can be, especially when coming from a source as Web savvy as The Atlantic.

Reading this story, they would have you believe that the art of headline writing is dying due to SEO (search engine optimization aka print’s favorite bogeyman). This could not be further from the truth. To understand why, you have to understand one fundamental thing about headlines online. For every story, there are at least two headlines: The headline that is attached to the story and the headline that is used to promote the story on a site’s indices (ie homepage or section pages). The former is the only one that must be SEO friendly. The latter does not.

Since clicks are still every sites’ currency, copywriters online have to write one headline that will sell the story to the search engines and one headline that will sell the story to human beings. Turns out, doing the latter is not so easy. For print people, think about it this way: Every headline on a homepage is a wood headline. Every headline needs to sell. On any given day, a newspaper has to write at most 3 headlines to compel someone to buy the paper at the newsstand. Online, you have to do it FOR EVERY STORY.

This is why headline writing online is far more cutthroat than in the paper. Forget writing SEO headlines. Anyone familiar with identifying proper nouns can do that. When you have to write a headline for a homepage that must compel someone to click, that must stand out from all the other headlines (not to mention photos, videos and ads) competing for their attention, this is what separates the pros from the wannabes. Ask these copywriters to spend a month managing a news website’s homepage and have them come back and see if they’re whistling the same tune.

(On a sidenote, it bothers me to read about copywriters complaining about Web editors rewriting their headlines. Somehow they forget that their puns were born out of necessity. Sometimes they only have 15 letters due to space constraints to promote a story and they have to use silly contractions or misspellings to make headlines work. Obviously online there are no space constraints. If Web editors did not edit these print-layout-specific headlines, it would be an embarrassment.)

So is good headline writing dying? No. Only headlines that involve self-indulgent puns that may make someone chuckle, but won’t make them click.

theatlantic:

‘Google Doesn’t Laugh’: Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO

If all online searches are literal, what happens to the headlines that involve a play on words? Are those headlines relegated to the print edition, where headline writers have a captive audience? Indeed, as newspapers embrace search engine optimization, and as young journalists are taught to value Google visibility above all else, many copy editors fear that funny headlines are quickly going the way of the classified ad.

Read more at The Atlantic