Headlines for Digital News: The Technical Side
Print editors had one constraint: physical column width. Digital editors have six: character limits across platforms, search indexing, social card previews, mobile truncation, audience segmentation, and publication speed. That's a different job.
Why digital headlines aren't just shorter versions of print ones
A headline that works perfectly in a broadsheet looks wrong as a tweet preview. The same story published on a homepage, in a newsletter, and on Google News needs three slightly different headers — same facts, different emphasis, different length.
This course is specifically about digital contexts. We don't spend time on print tradition except where it explains why certain digital habits are actually mistakes borrowed from old conventions.
What the algorithm sees vs. what the reader sees
Search engines index headlines differently than humans read them. Keyword placement matters, but so does natural phrasing — a header stuffed with search terms reads as spam and gets ignored anyway. Finding the balance between machine-readable and human-readable is a real skill, not a hack.
The best digital headline is accurate, specific, and interesting in that order. Not the other way around.
Platform-specific formatting
We cover Twitter/X card previews, Google News snippet behavior, Apple News formatting requirements, and newsletter subject line conventions. Each platform rewards slightly different approaches, and ignoring that costs you readers.
You'll also look at A/B headline testing — how major outlets like The Guardian and BuzzFeed News used it, what the data showed, and what it didn't.
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Module 1 — How digital reading behavior shapes headline writing
Eye-tracking data, scroll depth, and what actually gets clicked vs. what readers say they want. A quick survey of the research without the fluff.
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Module 2 — Character limits across platforms
Google (60 chars), Twitter card (70 chars), newsletter subject lines (40–50 chars), push notifications (30 chars). How to write one story for all four.
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Module 3 — Search-friendly headlines without keyword stuffing
How Google indexes news content, what "freshness" signals mean for headlines, and why exact-match titles often underperform natural phrasing.
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Module 4 — Social sharing and headline framing
Why the same headline reads differently in a Facebook preview vs. a Slack link. Emotional framing without baiting, and when specificity beats curiosity.
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Module 5 — A/B testing headlines: what the data shows
Real cases from digital publications, what variations they tested, and how to read the results without over-interpreting small sample sizes.
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Module 6 — Live editing workshop
Submit three headlines from your own work. Group feedback session with structured critique using the course framework.