How to write good press release headlines

7 ways to polish your traditional heads

Here’s a quick tip for making more of your news headlines: Make sure you’re telling the story and not just telling about the story.

Your news headline should communicate the gist of your news story. That way, readers can understand your point, even if they don’t read the body copy.

Instead of telling about the story:

Moves and milestones

Tell the story:

Phil Smith named product manager, Program Development

Instead of telling about the story:

Success stories

Tell the story:

E-commerce group sells out at Eurocomm trade show

Instead of telling about the story:

Benefits changes announced

Tell the story:

Hallmark doubles profit-sharing contribution

Instead of telling about the story:

New survey tracks industry trends

Tell the story:

More communicators measuring ROI, survey says

To write a catchy headline, communicate the important parts of the story.

Want to write great headlines that attract attention and get your target audience to read the article or blog post? Here are seven more steps for writing news headlines:

1. Make sure it’s news.

If your story covers breaking information, a news head may be your best bet. If you’re just getting around to confirming information that your readers got six weeks ago, you need a different approach.

Don’t get me started on editors who try to pass off second-day (or second-month) information as news. Just leave it at this: If you’re in the business of “announcing” ancient information, you’ll soon convince readers that the folks in communications are the last to get the word about your organization’s updates.

2. Answer the question, “What happened?”

That, after all, is the point of a news headline.

3. Make a single point.

Here’s a quick test to run on your headline: Count its commas, semicolons, dashes and other punctuation. That punctuation can be a clue that you’re trying to cover too many ideas in your headline.

Tempted to write headlines like these?

Copper Wire Theft Rising in XYZ Service Territory; Thefts Pose a Safety, Reliability Threat

XYZ Company Plans Expansion of its Texas Eastern System; Shippers Sign Long-Term Transportation Contracts to Serve Northeast Markets

New California law bans home disposal of cell phones and common batteries; residents can drop off cell phones and dead batteries at XYZ Company stores

Move everything after the semicolon into the deck, aka the one-sentence summary under the headline.

4. Make it factual and free of hype.

On my desk is a New Yorker cartoon where a CEO is talking to his PR executive. “Here it is, the plain, unvarnished truth,” the CEO says. “Varnish it.”

Skip the varnish. Cut phrases that sound anything like these:

Expands leadership

Sets major milestone

In a move that sets the next industry milestone and reinforces its leadership position … 

Your news headline should sound journalistic, not like marketing hype.

5. Use dynamic verbs.

A story is a verb, not a noun, as one of the former editors of The New York Times says. That means the verb is the story. So forget lame verbs like launches, introduces and announces.

And for gosh sakes, don’t leave the verb out altogether. Label headlines are the No. 1 problem I see when reviewing corporate headlines to customize my in-house writing workshops.

Subject, verb, object is the best sentence structure for good headlines. And use present tense, active voice.

6. Keep it short.

Keep your news head to eight words max. That’s the number people can understand at a glance, according to research by The American Press Institute.

This effective headline, for instance, tells the story in just six words, plus a 13-word deck:

IRS Introduces New, Paperless Tax Filing

TeleFile allows taxpayers to file by phone — in as little as 10 minutes

At 16 words, this one’s harder to process:

XYZ Company Donates $80,000 to The Nature Conservancy for Shareholders Choosing Paperless Delivery of Annual Report

Want to make this headline work? Move some of the headline into the deck. That’s what that second level of headline is for.

7. Use consistent capitalization.

Choose either sentence-structure capitalization or title capitalization. Which style is best for your organization?

• Is your organization more informal, like USA Today? It uses sentence-structure capitalization, capitalizing only proper nouns.
• Or Are You More Formal, like The New York Times? It Capitalizes Every Word.

Whichever you choose, stick with it. Keep your headline style consistent.

Learn about search engine optimization for headlines.