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| HAVE YOU LOOKED AT A NEWSPAPER LATELY? |
By:
Bob McElwain |
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No, I didn't ask if you had read a newspaper lately. I askedif you have looked at one. Closely. Have you examined one withcare? If you take a good look at the front page, here is whatyou will find.It's A Work Of Art The main headline can be read at a glance, even when locatedon a newsstand quite some distance away. It grabs attentionhard. It often draws you toward the rack, at least close enoughto read the subheadline. And, as often as not, just as millionsdo every day, you buy a copy to read the related article. Does the creation of the headline for your site matter lessthan that of creating one for a newspaper? Other Headlines Matter In putting together the first page of a newspaper, the majortask is to pull from the day's stories those most likely tointerest readers. Only those with maximum appeal are selected. And the headline for each is crafted with extreme care. Theobject is to have at least one that grabs the attention of anyreader. The best are used in the first fold, the part that showsin the newsstand. Do you have at least one subheadline that grabs the attentionof most visitors? Have you a couple others in the first screenthat loads?Formatting The amount of space given to the text of each article on thefront page varies. Such decisions need to be handled with care,for space is limited. If one chooses to run too much text in agiven article, another may need to be removed to an inner page,which subtracts that headline from the front page. While a web page has no fixed limit, visitors will not scrolldown indefinitely. Thus formatting matters here as well. Include those elements most likely to be of interest to yourtarget as close to the top of the page as possible. And eachneeds an attention grabbing headline.Teasers Newspapers generate profits from advertising. Yet you willnot see an ad on the front page of any major daily. Instead, allis headlines, followed by the beginnings of the story. Photosare used sparingly on the front page, for headlines and contentare generally the better draw. Further the article begins with the most important storyelements. What is presented ends with a teaser. This is thefirst part of a sentence, laden with emotion, that seeks tocompel you to turn to an inner page. For it is on the innerpages you will find the ads that generate the profits. An example often used is to end with, "The officer drew hispistol, cocked it, crouched down, then ... (Cont on page 23)The Site Parallel I don't want to get carried away with this. There aredifferences between the front page of a newspaper and your homepage. Still, your best benefit needs to be featured in the pageheadline. And subheadings should define others. The text isalways benefit loaded and has but one purpose: To draw yourvisitor deeper into the site.Another Parallel Newspapers are written for people in a hurry. So is awebsite. Thus the pattern of turning to an inner page to finishan article begun on the first page, compares in some ways toclicking off your home page to another for further information. Then clicking back.And Another If your home page is cluttered with graphics and/or ads,ponder some before deciding to leave them. The front page of anewspaper is all about easy reading and drawing people into innerpages. There are no ads and photos are minimal. This is a greatformula for your home page as well.Inner Pages As with a newspaper, you fire your biggest guns on your homepage. Thus your inner pages will have to make do with lesserbenefits, unless a neat way can be found to restate theoriginals. Newspapers to a very good job with their inner pages. We would all do well to follow suit.Print And Competition Competition in the print media is awesome. Of all forms,newspapers seem to face the greatest challenge. All find itdifficult to make profits. And indirect competition throughbooks and magazines adds to woes. Television steals newspaperreaders by the millions. Publishers struggle with this burden every day. They mustcontinue to beat the competition or go broke. There is no optionbut to seek to put out a better paper today than was producedyesterday.Is The Web Less Competitive? There are some who would argue it is less competitive, butI'm not one of them. With the flood of existing businessexpanding to the Web, I feel competition is increasing at anawesome and increasing rate. And I see no end in sight. As webmasters, though, we do have one distinct advantage overnewspapers - We don't have to do it every day. A newspaper ishistory tomorrow. We hope our websites have a somewhat longerspan. On the other hand, we best get it right, and make somechanges now and then to keep it that way. Every time I see a newspaper headline that grabs at me, itreminds of my website. Mentally I begin yet another review of myheadlines, content and format. I continue to learn a lot fromnewspapers about grabbing and holding attention. It might workfor you as well.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob McElwain Want to build a winning site? Improve one you already have? Fix one that's busted? Get ANSWERS. Subscribe to "STAT News" now! mailto:join-stat@lists.dundee.net Web marketing and consulting since 1993 Site: Phone: 209-742-6349
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