A headline may only appear at the top of your article, but it is actually one of the most important parts of what you write.

It’s the first thing people see and it’s what draws someone in to read your story, so it’s important to get it right.

Here are some tips on how to write a headline.

Headline or article first?

This may seem a little backwards but it’s pretty much always best to write your story first and then come back to the headline at the end.

This is because a headline is meant to be a summary of what you’ve written – so you’re unlikely to know how to summarise it properly before you’ve finished.

Think about who your headline is aimed at

When you’re writing your headline remember you want it to be appealing to the people you’re writing for. So for The Llama, you’re going to be writing for students who are around a similar age to you, and you’ll want to target them.

For example, if you’re writing an article about cheap places you can go on holiday, you might want to title it ‘5 cheap places students can go on holiday’ so they know the story is aimed at them.

Make it direct and active

When you’re writing a headline it’s more likely to draw people in if it’s direct, to the point and calls to action.

You want to make it active rather than passive. Being passive is where the subject undergoes the action of the verb, e.g. ‘they were hit’ rather than ‘he hit them’. The active version is much better to use as it sounds much more powerful.

An example of this in a headline could be:

Don’t say: 5 llamas were eaten by sharks at the beach

Say: Sharks ate 5 llamas at the beach

The second one sounds much scarier and more exciting, right? And it’s much more direct.*

Try to keep them 15 words or under in length

The shorter, the better – you want them to be snappy and to the point.

Make sure the key things are included in the headline

This one can be easier to do for some articles rather than others, depending on what your piece is about. To make sure you’ve covered all the important stuff it might be a good idea to make some bullet points summarising the main points of your article, and then try and condense those down into a headline.

e.g.

• My article is about how going to university is good to improve llamas’ futures and career prospects
• Doesn’t matter if you’re not exactly sure what job you want in the future
• I have included 7 points

Headline could be: 7 reasons why llamas should go to university even if they don’t know what job they want to do

Test them out

If you’re not sure on your headline, maybe write a few different versions and read them aloud to see which one sounds best.

You could even ask your friends or relatives to read the headline, tell you what they think your article is about and then read your piece and see if it fits the headline.

They could give you some suggestions on how to improve it, as it can be easier to edit things when you’re looking at it objectively.

Don’t overthink it

Now you’ve got some top tips above, try not to overthink it – follow the formula, keep it simple and see what flows. Practice makes perfect!

* No llamas were harmed in the making of this advice, I promise.