The first Covid vaccine arrived in the UK last week and The Sun newspaper’s headline was: ‘The needle has landed’.
It’s a great pun. The Sun is particularly good at ‘punny’ headlines.
But it’s a headline that only works well in print because there is a picture, caption and additional information – a subheading – to help readers understand what the story is about.
Did The Sun use the same headline for the online version?
No.
Why?
Because if people are Googling stories about the vaccine they aren’t likely to use ‘needle’ or ‘landed’ in their search terms. Headlines are an important part of search engine optimisation (SEO).
In addition, if you saw a list of different news headlines, would you immediately know what ‘The needle has landed’ was about?
When we are online we tend to make snap decisions. If there are other search results that more readily fit what we are looking for, are clear what the story is about then we’ll more likely click on those.
Continue reading “Writing online headlines that work”