5 rules for breaking news

I have converted an article about headline writing for the web, by Jakob Nielsen, into five easy to remember (and implement) rules:

1. Use a maximum of five words, keeping the title short and concise.
2. Make sure the title can be understood out of context, in order to suit search engines.
3. Be sure to convey the article's most important point in the headline - to grab the 'scanning' reader.
4. Use numbers wherever possible (e.g. 5 not five), as people prefer this method on the web.
5. Start with the keyword first, e.g. the name of the celebrity or country being written about. Again this is good for both search engines and the 'scanner'.

Three sites which show these rules to be both useful and operational include the following:

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8294365.stm
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6284424/Barack-Obama-surprised-and-humbled-by-Nobel-Peace-Prize.html
• http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/01-10-2009/109614-tsunami%20-0

The first of these links shows the use of both a celebrity name and numbers to grab the readers attention, whilst the second link shows that the scanning reader can be drawn in by using the familiar name at the beginning. This is also good journalistic practice for suiting search engine requirements. Finally, the last headline uses the keyword first 'earthquake' to clearly convey the stories most important point from the outset. This way the reader can get the gist of the story without even needing to read on any further than the headline.

In conclusion I believe that the 5 rules are a useful tool and can be implemented into web headlines fairly easily - although not all at once!