When it comes to web heads, focus on the front.

That is, place your topic words at the beginning of your headline. That approach:

• Signals to Google what your page is about, improving your place on search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Helps readers decide to click your link on SERPS, indexes and other lists

How important is this? It’s the No. 1 thing you can do to improve the ROI of your website, says Jakob Nielsen, “king of usability.”

“Selecting the first 2 words for your page titles is probably the highest-impact ROI-boosting design decision you make in a web project, he says. “Front-loading important keywords trumps most other design considerations.”

How readers read indexes and lists online.

When viewing a list of articles on SERPs, index pages or other story lists, web visitors spend less than one second looking at headlines. That’s according to Eyetrack III, a study of online behavior by The Poynter Institute.

The same thing’s true of the summary blurbs or decks in the index listing.

“The first couple of words need to be real attention-getters if you want to capture eyes,” the researchers say.

What can you tell skimmers in the first 11 characters of your web head?
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Not so fast, says usability guru Jakob Nielsen. He estimates that visitors really scan more like the first 11 characters. What do the first 11 characters of your headlines tell potential readers?

• Use drop-down menus sparingly
• Beyond the Inverted Pyramid
• Drake University campus life
• Introducing Chase Exclusives Special Benefits for Checking Customers
• Don’t let your head get cut off
• How to Write the News Release 2.0
• Your Company Name announces

Make sure the first couple of words tell and sell — tell readers what your story is about and sell them on clicking. Here are 14 ways to do that:

1. Lead with the topic word.

Nielsen suggests that instead of:

Use drop-down menus sparingly

You try:

Drop-down menus: Use sparingly

2. Use the simple sentence structure.

Write subject, verb, object. That forces the subject — aka the topic — to the top. Instead of:

Beyond the Inverted Pyramid

Make it:

Feature stories boost readership

3. Move your organization’s name to the end.

Instead of:

Drake University campus life

Make it:

Campus life at Drake University

4. Make it a label head.

I know. This one makes me feel squeamish, too. It probably works better on a basic web content page than on a story or release:

Social media writing webinar

Nope, I still hate it.

5. Try the passive voice.

I hate this idea, too. But passive voice can help you front-load key words, Nielsen says. For instance:

Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings

Still hate that one, too.

6. Use plain language and specific terms.

In a test Nielsen ran of what visitors could learn from the first 11 letters of an index listing, this web head scored best:

Gift cards & E-Gift Certificates

7. Avoid marketing fluff.

In Nielsen’s 11-character test, this headline proved to be the least effective:

Introducing Chase Exclusives Special Benefits for Checking Customers

8. Use numerals.

Say more with fewer characters by using numerals, instead of spelling out numbers. Nielsen suggests that instead of:

First two words: A signal for the scanning eye

You make it:

First 2 words: A signal for the scanning eye

Note: AP Style supports this approach.

9. Skip leading articles.

Drop the “a,” “an” or “the.” Instead of:

The approval process syndrome …

Make it:

Approval process syndrome …

10. Consider promoting popular story forms up front.

Got a list or infographic? Consider investing some of your 11 characters in that:

Flowchart: Are you a troll or thought leader?

11. Use your deck in metatags.

At Wylie Communications, we like feature heads almost as much as we like Twix bars:

Don’t let your head get cut off

Web headlines must fit on mobile apps and more

So we’re experimenting with using our descriptive, front-loaded decks in metatags instead:

Web headlines must fit on mobile apps and more

12. Meet readers out front in page titles.

Using that approach, we cause the deck to show up on indexes and SERPs:

Web headlines must fit on mobile apps and more

Both feature head and descriptive deck both show up on content pages:

Don’t let your head get cut off

Web headlines must fit on mobile apps and more

13. Make the topic phrase a kicker.

Move the topic to the top as an additional layer of headline. Instead of:

How to Write the News Release 2.0

Make it:

News release 2.0 — Help Google find your site

14. Check your index pages.

How does your headline show up in SERPs, index pages and other story lists?

When you scan the list of headlines and links, what’s the first word in each item? Is it the topic word? Is it clear, specific and interesting?

For a “how not to” example of making copy list-ready, check out your organization’s index of press release headlines. Most bury the topic word behind:

Your Company Name announces …

How does yours stack up?
_____

Sources: Andy Bechtel, “Writing Headlines for Digital and Mobile Media,” Poynter News University, Dec. 5, 2013

Jakob Nielsen, “Company Name First in Microcontent? Sometimes!” Alertbox, March 3, 2008

Jakob Nielsen, “Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings,” Alertbox, Oct. 22, 2007

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There’s nothing like noun phrases to make a tight sentence long, to transform clear, conversational language into stuffy bureaucratese:

“It is the intention of this team to facilitate the improvement of our company’s processes.”

Yet too many communicators write in noun phrases, not in verb phrases.

Why avoid noun phrases?

Noun phrases are groups of words where writers have turned verbs into nouns with latinized suffixes. Noun phrases:

1. Suck the energy out of your copy.

Noun phrases take perfectly strong verbs — verbs like “intend” and “improve” — and turn them into long, latinized nouns: “intention” and “improvement.” As a result, noun phrases suck the energy from a sentence, because only verbs can convey action.

“Much of what crosses my desk has been through the de-verb-o-rizer a few times.”

— A frustrated communicator

That’s a problem, because the human brain thinks in action, not in things or ideas. Or so says Jon Franklin, author of Writing for Story and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for feature stories:

Don’t turn action into persons, places, things or ideas.

2. Muddy your words.

Latinized nouns are almost always longer than the verbs they replace. Intention is three characters longer than intend; improvement, four characters longer than improve.

3. Lengthen your phrases.

It’s not just that noun phrases make single words longer. They also add to the length of sentences.

Noun phrases include the on one side of the nouned verb; of on the other: The improvement of. That makes a noun phrase two words longer than the original verb.

4. Bore your readers.

Noun phrases “aren’t visual and turn prose pallid,” writes science fiction author Nancy Kress. “Save them for interoffice memos.”

5. Make it seem as if you don’t understand.

As Joseph M. Williams writes in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace:

Avoid these “clumps of abstraction.”

Search and destroy noun phrases

How do you get the action back into noun phrases?

“Exhume the action, make it a verb, and you’re almost certain to tighten and enliven the wording.”

— Claire Kehrwald Cook, author of Line by Line

To spot and repair these sloggy phrases:

1. Search for the word “of.”

That doesn’t mean that “of” is bad or is part of a noun phrase. But virtually every noun phrase uses the “the … of” construction (“the intention of” instead of “intend,” for example.) When you find an “of” …

2. Look to the left for a latinized suffix.

Suffixes like “tion,” “ment,” “ize” or “ility” turn verbs into nouns.

3. Turn noun phrases back into verbs.

When you find a noun phrase, recast it into a verb-powered sentence. “Our team plans to help improve our company’s processes,” for instance.

The result: Strong verbs that drive your copy — and sentences that are shorter, more energetic and easier to understand.

Write for readability.

Here are four more ways to make your writing clearer and shorter:

• Activate passive voice: Don’t make your subject objects.
• Avoid adjective clauses: Hype just gets in the way.
• Steer clear of prepositional phrases: They’re hard to understand.
• Nail possessive pronouns: And other ways to write it right.

___

Sources: Ann Wylie, Cut Through the Clutter, Wylie Communications Inc., 2005

Nancy Kress, “Write Lean and Mean,” Writer’s Digest, July 2004

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