Do you want to increase story click-through rates?
If yes, then you need to take a leaf out of the BBC book, whose editors have perfected the art of writing Home Page headlines.
They rework most headlines run on the Home page.
Short, crisp and informative, the Home Page headlines are like magnets. Their promise is such that you are tempted to click on them, and read the story.
Here are three examples:
Example 1: The story explained what happens to nuclear submarines when they are no longer needed. The headline, “Where nuclear submarines go to die”, gave the story a virtual life.
The headline had tremendous pulling power, and overshadowed the headline used on the story page: “How do you dismantle a nuclear submarine?
Example 2: The BBC headline written for Indian males aroused curiosity with the statement: “An awkward question for Indian men”
On the story page, the BBC headline was intriguing, but less powerful: “A question for Indian men: what does your wife do?” It is quite possible that you would have skipped the story if the Story Page headline was posted on the Home Page.
Example 3: Another intriguing Home Page headline was on the story regarding near-death experiences. It made you want to click on the headline: “What it’s really like to die”.
The Story Page also had a powerful headline but it was not that magnetic as the Home page headline.
Lesson to be learnt
There is little doubt that the BBC editors have found a smart way to arrest reader attention, and make him read stories. The effort is especially laudatory since BBC has a high density of content on the Home page.
The possibility of visitors missing stories can’t be ruled out because BBC, like several other news sites, has a Home Page that is several screens deep.
The only way to hook the reader is through a smart headline. The strategy holds a lesson for most Indian news sites, where too the density of content is very high.
The editors of these sites should write catchy Home Page headlines if they want readers to stop, and open story pages.
Read also an article on the art of writing web headlines written by Jakob Nielsen, the well-known web usability guru on BBC headlines.
See also: 5 characteristics of web headlines
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