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But what’s the topic?

Silver Anvil winners show it’s not ‘us and our stuff’

Front-loading your headlines with your topic word just makes sense if your readers are going to encounter those headlines in online lists — a search engine results page, for instance, or your online newsroom.

But what's the topic?
Topic up top Lead with the topic word — but first, make sure you know what the topic is. Image by Chris Murphy

That’s because readers look at only the first two or three words of the headline when scanning lists (Rev Up Readership members only; join Rev Up Readership). This technique is so important that usability expert Jakob Nielsen ranks it the No. 1 thing you can do to improve the ROI of your website.

But what’s the topic?

Too many communicators (and, let’s be honest, their reviewers) believe that the company or its product or service is the topic. But the real topic is the reader or what they reader can do, as these Silver Anvil Award-winning headlines demonstrate:

Blood Cancer Patients and Advocates Visit Capitol Hill to Inspire Continued Support for Be the Match

July 18 Legislative Day event
aimed at delivering more cures to patients in need

— Be the Match
Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign
Parents and teen drivers dangerously disconnected

New State Farm survey reveals an alarming gap between parents’ and teens’ views on driver safety licensing laws

— State Farm
Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign
Color Your Easter with Eggs

HGTV Interior Designer Sabrina Soto
Offers Easter Decorating Tips to “Dye” for

— Edelman and The Egg Board
Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign
Before spring planting, expert says,
“Dig a little. Learn a lot.”
— Natural Resources Conservation Service
Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign
Survey: Cover crops deliver strong harvest amid drought

Agency focuses on helping
farmers build resilient farms through soil health

— Natural Resources Conservation Service
Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Don’t write about us and our stuff. To catch your reader, write about the reader and the reader’s needs.

Heads up on headlines

“When you finish writing your headline,” David Ogilvy liked to say, “you’ve spent 80 cents of your advertising dollar.”

NOT Your Father's News Release - Portland PR writing workshopDisplay copy — headlines, decks, subheads, captions, callouts, and so forth — get the biggest ROI of all the copy we write.

That’s why I’m often amazed that the same folks who spend hours polishing the quote in the fourth paragraph toss off a headline in the 17 seconds before happy hour on a Friday afternoon. Most of your readers will never see the fourth paragraph of your brilliant copy. But many more will read your headlines and other display copy.

At NOT Your Father’s News Release — our two-day PR-writing workshop on July 27-28 in Portland, Oregon — you’ll learn current best practices, proven in the lab, for polishing your PR piece’s headline, deck, lead, body, quotes and more. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:

  • Write stories that reporters want to cover and that readers want to read: Find out which story angles draw journalists and their readers in — and which make them flee.
  • Avoid PR headline words: Shun these lame, overused terms and make your release stand out from the crowd.
  • Write headlines for news portals: If your headline is too long, portals will cut it off. (Google News rejects one in five releases for this reason.)
  • Stop dropping the one element most people read on a Web page: Most PR writers skip it regularly.
  • Set up the story: See how your story will appear on search engine results pages — and learn how to craft key elements to get readers to click.

If you’d like to make over your release … if you’d like to gain more and better news coverage … if you’d like to stop writing fill-in-the-blanks quotes … this Master Class is for you.

Join us to learn why Daphne Siefert Herron, senior communications officer at Indiana University, said of this Master Class, “This is the best and most practical training I’ve ever had. I’ll use all of her tips on a daily basis.”

Save $100: Just 20 early bird tickets remain for this class. When they’re gone, they’re gone. If you’d like to secure the best price on this workshop, please register today.

Learn more.

Register for Public Relations writing workshop in Portland


Browse all upcoming Master Classes.

Would you like to hold an in-house NOT Your Father’s News Release workshop? Contact Ann directly.