Introduction

The heading that increased sales by 51%:

RETIRE RICH

Those two simple words on the cover of FORTUNE magazine’s annual retirement guide drove sales up an incredible 51% in 1998, making it the most popular issue in the magazine’s 70-year history and increasing revenue by hundreds of thousands of dollars. An ideal heading for a magazine cover is brief, direct, and powerful. The would-be magazine buyer is looking at a rack of dozens of magazines, and makes a decision in minutes or even seconds. The cover line is the first—and often the only—thing the potential buyer reads.

The online writer faces a very similar challenge. Unless the heading you pick for your article or report has some of the key attributes discussed in this lesson, potential readers might not bother reading on. There are three reasons why this is so.

1. If your heading doesn't describe the content of the article or document, a search engine will not find it.
2. Search engines display only the heading and a few words of text, and usually show ten or more at a time. If you can’t convince users to click on your heading, you’ve lost them.
3. Even if a person has already arrived at your website, more than three-quarters of all readers, according to usability studies, scan a page before reading anything. If your heading doesn’t work, readers will hit the “Back” button in an instant.

Writing good headings is difficult, but Arconics' five-step process and eight easy rules will enable you to make your headings far more powerful. They will also show you how to avoid the simple mistakes that make for bad headings and low readership.