There will be a target audience for every piece of writing. Some of these are quite specific. Business reports have the audience of business partners. White papers have an audience of technical and informed readers.
Web copy has the specific audience of target users defined by the business, but needs to achieve more than that. Web content always has at least two kinds of audience: human users and search engine spiders. Content needs to satisfy both audiences equally. A headline, one of the most important parts of this content, needs to attract both audiences equally.
Human users: your main audience
Although SEO focuses on the search engines, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that your human users are your main target. If human users are put off your site, your traffic statistics are meaningless.
Your site’s users will come in two different categories. These are browsers and searchers. The latter category is the one that most search engine optimisation techniques target. They are the users that are searching for something specific, who come to you through the search engines and who will scan your site swiftly. Browsers are users who have probably been to your site before and are not in a rush.
Both types of user will be attracted to headlines that are creative and informative. This means that the title must both show what the article is about and express some personality. Browsers are usually familiar with your style and will be more open to quirky headlines, but searchers need a hook in the headline. For example, ‘Man bites God’ is quirky but uninformative, whereas ‘Landmark atheist lawsuit to succeed?’ provides information and draws the reader in.
The search engines
Search engines behave in predictable ways, and SEO techniques are designed to attract and please them. Their algorithms look for things that will suit the second type of user above, the searchers, but in a more mechanical way. This means that creativity isn’t taken into account. Headlines for the search engines need to have keywords in a prominent place, as far to the left as you can. For example, ‘Civil law: Atheist takes on church’ pushes the keywords forward.
Social media: the third audience
Although it is yet to really compete with the main audiences of users and search engines, social media is becoming a bigger audience for the average website. Headlines for this audience need to convince the reader to click through to your site. Keywords are important, but unlike a searcher audience social media users are attracted to entertainment propositions. Mentioning any media connected with the story and pushing the novelty value works best in social media networks. For example, ‘Video: Man tackles God’ might work better for social media.
It is possible to write headlines for all three kinds of audience. If you can, however, it is best to define exactly what audience a piece of content has for better focus. You can talk to our consultants at about headlines and SEO content.
