Journalists sub headline keyword Google analytics
MAXWELL COOTER says journalists writing headlines are doing it for Google, not the readers
WRITING A HEADLINE used to be a straightforward job; difficult but straightforward: sum up the story in a few succinct words, and if it included a clever — or maybe not-so-clever — play on words, so much the better. All a good sub needed was a dictionary and some basic cunning.
The advent of the internet has changed that. Today’s subs — or more often than not reporters, subs having been deemed superfluous in many places — have to consider two imperatives: key word search and search engine optimisation. The old fashioned witty, punning headline is heading for the scrapheap.
What counts now is a headline that merits top ranking in online searches. The trusty dictionary has been replaced by Google Analytics or perhaps Google Zeitgeist.
Subs will probably be using a web metrics program, such as Omniture, too. The figures are all there: you know that if, for example, you want to use a popular singer to illustrate a story, then Leona Lewis is more popular than Susan Boyle. The tool can be used to build up a type of identikit headline maker, with every word analysed and checked for popularity.
This can lead to strange results. For example, in this new world of keyword-driven headlines, there’s nothing stopping a sub using the same word in both the headline and a strap on the same story. So if Obama is a hot word then “Obama cops Nobel Peace Prize” could easily be followed by “Leaders praise award for Obama”.
So while subs used to be taught specifically to use different terminology in headline and intro, in the interest of variety, to interest the reader, now they often use the same key words. It’s like reading a bad school essay in which the same phrases are repeated over and over — it’s always easy to tell which story has been search engine optimised. It’s almost as if it had been written by a computer.
This scientific and calculating approach leaves little room for the sound of language or the richness of English phrase-making, let alone wit or humour. It’s composition by the rules — rather like making love by following a sex manual.
I can remember a college lecturer telling us that reading poetry was a useful aid to writing arresting headlines. That was then: now it seems a thorough grasp of statistics and numerical analysis is more useful.