Web copywriters and bloggers like me constantly wonder if short or long headlines are better. We’ve been asking the question for years in the hopes of finding an arbitrary length for grabbing someone’s attention and encouraging them to read farther, which is what headlines are supposed to do.
In fact, there really isn’t a set amount of words a headline should be. The solution to this problem doesn’t lie in adding or subtracting a word…there’s no mysterious formula out there.
But you can test your headline to see if it’s too long by using the “breath” test according to Copyblogger contributor Sean D’Souza. Take this headline for example:
How To Recognize Six Difficult Telltale Signs Of Disinterest And Lack Of Motivation In Your Student And Customer
Kind of long isn’t it? If you didn’t run out of breath, you certainly struggled to read this headline in its entirety. And if you can’t say it easily in one breath, you’re not going to be able to easily hear it one breath either. This will just lead to confusion as to what the page is about.
If readers can’t read your headline in one breath, your message will be garbled.
But like we said above, adding or removing words doesn’t make or break a headline. Take this one for example:
They Laughed when I Sat Down at the Piano. But when I Started to Play …
You can’t say this one in its entirety in one breath either. But the key to this one as opposed to the longer one is the period separating the thought. A period (or comma, parentheses or dash) indicates the end of one thought and the beginning of another.
When you have this “mental pause” in your headline, a reader will instinctively know you have a pause built into your headline and read it as two separate thoughts.
So next time you’re writing a headline and think it might be too long, do the breath test. If you run out of breath or struggle to complete the thought, add some punctuation to separate your thoughts. If this doesn’t work, get rid of the headline and start over.
Giving your readers headlines and thoughts they can’t process in one breath will only lead to confusion, rendering a good headline completely useless.