"Don't Crunch Your Headlines!"

By Francis Ardi

Anything you can do to better your headline's attention-getting and interest-stimulating power is well worth pursuing.

Here are what some advertising experts had to say:

Some copywriters like to brag about changing just one word  in a headline resulted in a 25 to 50 per cent increased response compared to the original in a split test.

I'd like to go one step further to say that, in some cases, you can ramp up response to a sales letter without changing a single word  in the headline. And the neat thing about it is that you don't even have to be a copywriter to do it.  If you're a web page designer or graphic artist, you can optimize your clients' headlines with just some basic knowledge of sentence structure.

This doesn't usually apply to short headlines.

You'll understand why this is so as your read further.  Ideally, headlines should be short - less than twenty words - for quick, attention grabbing ability.  To paraphrase marketing guru Ted Nicholas, "If you know how to write good headlines, you're just seventeen words away from generating all the wealth you desire."  Apparently he found by testing that headlines of more than twenty words did not do so well.

Long Headlines of 25+ Words, however,
are quite common, especially on the Internet.  
And many of them have been proven to be effective.

 I don't fully agree that you need to obsess yourself with keeping the headline under 20 words or 140 characters.  Long headlines can be just as attention getting and convincing - provided - I mean provided - that you follow this one simple rule...

Don't Crunch Your Headlines.

Crunched headlines are quite prevalent on the Internet.  See for yourself.  Try clicking on the links in all those newsletters, ezines, and UCE mail (aka spam) you get each day.  Notice how many headlines appear more like paragraphs than a simple sentence... 
or more like one huge blur of big bold text that, despite the big bold font face, you need to read closely to put together the meaning.

Considering how vital headlines are, I'm surprised and even appalled that most copywriters and web page designers pay no attention to this not so trivial detail.

If you would please look carefully, line by line, the examples below, you will quickly see what I mean by a "crunched" headline.  Notice how in the original, the "units of thought" that make up the sentence (the subject, predicate, modifiers, etc.) are fractured across the lines of the sentence.   This usually results from trying to "cram" the excessively long sentence into an HTML table - the hidden rectangle structure visible as a dotted box in your web page editor (I use MS Front Page) but not seen on your web browser panel.

Once again: You have only five seconds to get your readers attention and make a strong case for wanting to read your page.

Crunched Headline Example #1

Original Version exactly as it appears on the web page from which it was taken. 

Now here's the Optimized Version:

Notice that I have not changed a single word other than the & to and. 
Notice how each unit of thought distinctly appears on its own line.

 Crunched Headline Example #2

Here's an other one of my favorites in its original form.  This one is really horrible.  See how the individual units of thought are fractured across the lines of the headline.

And now rearranging the words to put each thought unit on its own line and making the big idea of the headline stand out by making its text bigger.

 Crunched Headline Example #3

Does this headline really grab you by the lapels, despite its bold hypey message?  
Notice how the 'units of thought' that make up the headline are fractured across the headline's eight lines.  

Notice the arrangement of each unit of thought on its own line
and the emboldening of the headline's core concept.

Crunched Headline Example #5

This is a real pastafazoo of famous names.  
You really have to strain you eyes to read them.

I'm sure you can easily recognize at least some of the names
if you've been learning about internet marketing for some time.

Copyright © 2005 by Francis Ardi
Permission is granted to distribute this article freely
as long as the copyright notice and the bio 'About Francis Ardi'
appears in all copies distributed by any third party.