One of the most traditional and successful ways of maintaining media relationships with different outlets is to send press releases. However, for many, one of the biggest challenges that come with press release development is creating a release that will get the attention of the media and of the readers. One thing of the best ways to do this is to create the right headline for your releases. Remember, the headline is crucial and it helps determine a few important thing. The headline is one of the first things that a journalist will read when they consider a press release. The headline also drive sharing through social media and news outlets, if it is intriguing, and it can help impact click-through rates. Also the headline of a piece can impact search visibility.
There are a lot of ways that the right headline can help any piece get the media attention that it deserve. This is why those who are looking to develop strong relationships with different media outlets should be well trained in the art of headline creation. A headline needs to be a few things; it needs to be well-written, compelling and it needs to have relevant keywords or phrases. When writing a press release, it is important to not ‘hype up’ the release or the story too much and to stick with the facts. While it should be interesting, the headline shouldn’t mislead or exaggerate.
Length is also an important factor in creating a strong press release headline. Keep in mind that most media outlets are looking to find success with Google, when a post, article or press release is indexed by Google and shows up in Google search results there is a maximum character count to be aware of. This character count runs between 65 and 80 characters including spaces. With this in mind, you will want to keep the headlines on the shorter side and make sure that the most important part of your headline isn’t at the end and in risk of being cut off. If you are sending out press releases through a wire service, the titles can be slightly longer, usually around 100 to 125 characters. On sites such as Twitter, the length needs to be under 110 characters. This is important for the many using social media as a way to get the word out about their companies. With this in mind, when it comes to getting media attention, be sure to pay close attention to your headlines.
