Secrets To Creating Great Headlines
Catherine Franz

Great! You finished your piece and now need a headline. Usually
headlines are less than ten words and need to be expressed in
short, expressive, active words. This provides quick focus and
pull in. By waiting until you know what you are ending up with,
it will save you time. You can give a temporary headline while
drafting.

If you have a good lead paragraph, you will find the headline.
If you want to intrigue or hook your readers, look at the
significant points instead. Which idea or thought can you use
as that hook.

Here are some tips on how to write that headline:

* Grab a highlighter and underline the nouns and key words in
your lead paragraph.

* From the key words, imagine yourself composing a telegram,
and each word is costing you $10. Avoid articles -- A, An, The
-- and prepositions -- On, Under, Beside, etc.

* Substitute simple but effective synonyms to keywords. Say
"polls" instead of "elections" or "go on" instead of
"continue."

* Write headlines that are simple and easy to read. Don't use
heavy words. Use words that are short and familiar.

* Directly give your story's main idea at the beginning of your
headline.

* Try and working in the main benefit the reader gets for
reading further. Also, add another benefit in the lead
paragraph, to keep them moving forward.

* Use dynamic and powerful words. Not what you think is
powerful but what you reader is going to think as powerful.

* Always be specific and avoid generalities. "Do this and you
will get this" needs to be specific to be believable. Provide
examples or statistics. Give the result that is believable to
the reader.

* Only use a person's name in the headline if they are well
known. Provide a link to where someone can find out more about
this person.

* Repeating key words, using weak verbs such as a, an, is, are,
or starting the line with a verb is not recommended.

* If you have to use abbreviations, do so only when the
abbreviation is commonly known to your main target market.
Create a footnote for a definition or place the abbreviations
in parentheses.

* Use numbers only if important and write them in figures --
use B for billion and M for million.

* Even if your statistics are outstanding you might not want to
state them. If they are too unbelievable, people will not buy.

These thirteen tips are not all inclusive to all the tips and
techniques you can use to create headlines. When I wrote these
I wanted to convey some suggestions for the frequent mistakes I
see made or unique recommendations that will get your headline
noticed quickly and build curiosity.


About The Author: Catherine Franz, business and writing coach,
resides in Virginia and is a syndicated columnist, radio
producer, International speaker, and author. Ezines and other
articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com
http://abundance.blogs.com