Writing better headlines for print

2 Days

Course Overview:

This course is for those who want to improve all aspects of their headlines writing especially online

Who the course for:

Journalists and sub-editors from all sectors who want to improve every aspects of their headline writing, especially online. It is also relevant for those working in public relations and marketing.

Objectives & Outcomes

In this training you will learn to look at the quality of your headlines to assess whether or not they are achieving their primary purpose and also look at techniques to improve them.

• The rules, and when to break them
• Making headlines fit
• News and feature heads: the differing approaches
• Using ‘power’ words
• Dealing with tight character counts and online restrictions
• The delight and danger of puns in an SEO-driven world
• Saying more than the obvious in captions
• Writing better cover lines and contents page lines

Digital Highlight

• Key lessons for online headlines
• Headlines for different media platforms
• Writing better homepage lines

Course Content

Module 1:

The rules, and when to break them

Module 2:

Making headlines fit

Module 3:

News and feature heads: the differing approaches

Module 4:

Using ‘power’ words

Module 5:

Dealing with tight character counts and online restrictions

• The delight and danger of puns in an SEO-driven world

Module 6:

Saying more than the obvious in captions

Module 7:

Writing better cover lines and contents page lines

Not For: Total beginners to journalism