Terra Extraneus

Many bloggers labor to write an intelligent, well-crafted article, only to top it off with an awful headline. If you wrote a book, would you spend only a few seconds developing the title? Likewise, if you have spent several minutes or more writing a good blog post, take a little extra time to give it a decent headline.

A headline that says something. A headline that draws the reader in. A headline that tells your prospective visitor what your article is about and why he should take the time to read it.

Much has been written about headline writing. Google returns 100,000 hits for the phrase “headline writing.” In writing this post, I took the time to review several other articles on the topic. How to write headlines that sing. Headlines that are clever, ironic, humorous, alliterative, even poetic. Headlines that pique a person’s curiosity.

Great headlines are a worthy goal, but I think those articles expect too much from the typical law blogger. A truly outstanding headline is worth every syllable, but most law bloggers can’t devote more than a minute or two to each headline they write. Therefore, my goal with this post is not to elevate any headlines from good to great, but simply to minimize the number of law blog headlines out there that are just plain awful.

Law bloggers are especially guilty of putting bad headlines on good blog posts. Maybe it’s because most of the other things a lawyer writes, from emails to correspondence to contracts to pleadings, don’t require creative titles. However, unlike the legal documents you write, nobody has to read your blog post — unless your headline convinces them to do so. The good news: although great headlines may be a work of art, a good, solid, effective headline only takes a little extra effort.

The First Commandment of Good Headline Writing is so obvious that it is amazing how seldom it is heeded: Your headline should tell the reader what you have to say. The test is a simple one: If I can’t tell from your headline what your topic is and the basic point you want to make about that topic, your headline has failed, and it has probably turned me away.

OK, sure, there are exceptions to that rule. There are marvelous headlines that are inscrutable and yet so exquisite – so creative, intriguing or provocative – that one glance and the reader cannot turn away. And there are some bloggers who are so popular, whose devoted followers hang on to every pixel they post, that the headlines just don’t matter. But if you are among the 99.8% of us who are neither celebrity bloggers nor headline-writing wizards, then at least give us a headline that signposts what you have written.

Some headlines don’t offer a clue. In the current issue of Blawg Review (No. 107), I came across these headlines: “A Rare Non-lawsuit,” “Regulation is the Key,” and “Why Aren’t We There Yet?” Do those headlines grab you and pull you in? Not me. What in the heck are they even about? Respectively, they are about a claim related to a high school football injury, regulation of the legal process outsourcing industry, and the status of women in the legal profession. Interesting topics, so why not use the headline to arouse the interest of prospective readers?

However, the headline should do more than merely identify the topic. Repeating that First Commandment of Headlines: Your headline should tell the reader what you have to say. Not just the topic, but what you have to say about it. In straightforward, specific language, tell me what is in store if I take the time to read your article.

In a search on the phrase “tort reform,” here are three headlines I pulled up from law blogs across the country: “Tort Reform,” “Tort Reform: A Suggestion or Two,” and “Real Tort Reform.” Now remember, these are showing up in search engine results among scores of other entries through which readers are skimming in search of some good reading. Which of those headlines would get your click? Pretty hard to pick?

However, on the same results pages I found these headlines: “How Tort Reform Can Hurt You,” “Tort Reform Does Not Reduce Insurance Premiums,” “Tort Reform is Misguided and Tyrannical,” and “Pfizer Proves That Tort Reform Was a Fraud.” Those headlines may not be works of art, but at least they are interesting, creating a clear and specific pathway into the pieces they head.

Think about it. There is just one reason for a person to run the phrase “tort reform” on a search engine: he wants information on that subject. You don’t have to convince him to be interested in the topic; he already is. What you do have to do is convince him to select your post from among the sea of choices that the search engine splashes up on his screen. I think you will agree, the second group of headlines above are much more likely to achieve that, because they actually say something. The first group of heads really don’t say anything at all. If the writer has nothing to say in his headline, what chance is there that he has something to say in his post?

Great headlines may be asking for too much, but it is easy to go from awful to pretty good. It just takes a little extra effort, and it is as basic as crafting a headline that tells me what you have to say.

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OK, I’m on a hobby horse. I have a lot more notes on this topic of law blog headline writing, so look for a few more posts on this topic in the coming days.

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Thanks to Charles Hill at Oklahoma’s favorite blog, Dustbury, for linking to this post. Charles lists some of his own favorite headlines from the past year.

Thanks to Click Abuse & Fraud for linking to this post.