Shape of Things

A friend recently posted this joke on Facebook: “How many SEO experts does it take to change a lightbulb, light bulb, bulb, lamp, light, eco-bulb, bulbs, fluorescent tubes?”

It was timely for me because I’ve been noticing lately that the fine art of headline writing is being reduced to long expository sentences weighted down by keywords.  Made me think that a classic headline such as “Headless Body in Topless Bar” could end up like this: “Deceased Resident without Head Found in Exotic Bar and Lounge Establishment by New York City Police Department.”

It also reminded me of the laziest headline writer I’ve ever seen.  He’d write his lead sentence, then use the opening five or six words for his headline.  I don’t think he’s alive today.  Too bad. His time has come courtesy of SEO.

Organizations that encourage writers to lard their headlines and lead sentences with key search terms are missing something very basic: People don’t want to read garbage.  They want something that reels them in, captivates and excites them, makes them want to share with others.

Incredibly good content is the best magnet to bring people to your site and keep them there.  If you don’t believe me, take a look at what your friends and colleagues pass along to you via twitter or Facebook.  Bet it’s the content, and perhaps even the headline, that grabbed them.

This isn’t an either/or situation, of course.  A good writer can make SEO and Great Content skip up the hill hand in hand and pick daisies together.  Just make sure that SEO doesn’t get too arrogant and kick Great Content’s ass down the hill.

There’s not much cause to be aggravated at the beach on a beautiful day.  But, there we were returning from an idyllic walk and I was fuming at the horrible quality of writing in the slick beach magazine.

My wife, a writer, had enough.  “I don’t want to hear any more about this.  I can sum up why this happens in two words: ‘good enough’.”

Yes, all the happy, non-specific adjectives, the indirect sentences, the lack of any humanity in an article about a small town we know has an interesting history and funny, articulate people, it all came down to that: It’s good enough.  Good enough to get real estate, restaurant and curio shop advertising.  Good enough for people to thumb through while awaiting fried seafood.

The same could be said for most corporate communication.  Most organizations settle for good enough without recognizing what a disservice it is to them, their customers and partners.

The thing with “good enough” is that it invariably has an expiration date. Search engines were good enough until Google; MP3 players before the iPoD; city magazines before The New Yorker; broiled fish before sushi.

The fact that good enough suffices for the vast majority of organizations sets up major opportunities for those who want to go beyond the average.  Just a little extra can pay big dividends in how your company is perceived, the amount of trust it receives, and the leeway customers are willing to give if you make a mistake.

Here are eight things you can do to move beyond good enough in your communications.

1. Speak in the language of your customers in all of your communications.

2. Communicate with customers in ways that help them become better; be supportive, absorbing, humorous, perspicacious, technically strong and/or sympathetic.

3. Write and publish case studies that make customers the center of attention.

4. Build solid relationships with editors and writers and deliver good material on deadline.

5. Listen to customers whenever possible – at trade shows, conferences and other events – and reflect their joy, fears and pride in your communication.

6. Support or set up community sites that provide useful information for customers and a forum for sharing experiences and answers to problems.

7. Don’t drink the company kool-aid; look at everything with a critical eye and avoid any whiff of propaganda.

8. Hire proven professionals to write and edit for you; don’t leave your story in the hands of amateurs.

These are just eight out of hundreds of ways, big and small, to transcend good enough.  What are some of yours?

Before Twitter, there were even shorter blasts of pithy language, where plangent puns, juxtaposition, jaunty wordplay and irony stretched their splendid feathers daily.

They were called headlines.  Sadly, they are becoming a lost art amid bland, search-engine-optimized titles affixed like a shabby gimme-cap above press releases and case studies.

Fortunately, we still have some examples of the art used to entice, delight and amuse.

Heads of the class

Give thanks that the New York Post continues to wave the flag.  The Post, of course, penned perhaps the greatest tabloid headline: “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar.” In the past couple of years, Post headlines have branded the womanizing Alex Rodriguez as “Stray Rod” and blared this message after a humiliating Yankee loss on a Mexican holiday: “Stinko de Mayo.”

In a more serious vein, the Wall Street Journal holds sway daily with an array of headlines that draw a curious reader into the story like a barker in front of a circus tent.  Wow, I never knew I’d be interested in yak farming!  WSJ can put on the jester’s cap at times, too, as when it topped its story about petty jealousy among male British writers toward Martin Amis with this tickler: “British Writers Suffering from Amis Envy.”

Why heads matter

OK, so fun is fun, but what do great headlines have to do with the humble press release, case story or blog posting?

Just as in a newspaper, technical publication or web site, the headline makes the difference in who reads a piece and who doesn’t. Take a look at Business Wire or PR Newswire.  Is there a headline in any of those press releases that makes you want to read it?

Now, I know what you’re saying: “We can’t do what news outlets do.  We have requirements, such as getting the company’s name and/or keywords in the headline.”  Yes, these are real challenges, but they shouldn’t make you settle for the mundane. You don’t have to be Oscar Wilde: If you can’t make the headline entertaining, or the subject matter won’t support it, strive for clean, clear and concise.

Here are some examples from my vaults.

This one pulled out a user quote to add life to a new product announcement:

Red Gate’s new ANTS Memory Profiler 5:
“freaking sweet” to find memory leaks in minutes

Here’s another for a press release on software used to make 56-foot-tall models of soccer players:

Geomagic makes soccer players
larger than life in Zurich train station

If you can’t fit the differentiating information into a two-deck headline, opt for the big kicker head followed by a detailed headline:

The City Tap opens in Pittsboro

Amp builder, ex-bookseller and sculptor combine comfort
of neighborhood bar with eclectic mix of art, sound, food & drink

It’s your business

None of the above headlines is a classic, but they are different enough from the bland labels that sit atop most stories - just enough to attract an editor or to pull in readers that might otherwise pass over this material.  And, ultimately, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing - getting people to pay attention. It’s not a sideline or an ancillary goal; it’s a requirement.  Every time out, we need to remember that the story starts from the top.

In software development, it’s called “feature creep.” Here’s how it’s defined in Wikipedia:

Feature creep is the proliferation of features in a product such as computer software. Extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and can result in baroque over-complication rather than simple, elegant design.

Increasingly, the equivalent of feature creep is invading our written communication. It comes in the form of annoying traits that have embedded themselves like killer algae in our text. Here are my 10 creepy things in no particular order. I’d love to hear yours.

1. Those annoying quotation marks everywhere. Thanks to Lynne Truss for telling the world about this in Eats, Shoots & Leaves, and to Seth Godin for reminding us recently.

2. Improper use of apostrophes (thanks again, Seth).

3. Turning nouns into awful verbs. Don’t incent me, please.

4. Avoiding the active voice.

5. Misleading headlines and hard-to-identify jump heads.

6. Typos - they’re everywhere despite (or probably because of) spellcheckers.

7. The 50+ word sentence and 20-line paragraph.

8. Indirect sentences stacked up like planes at LaGuardia.

9. Excessive adverbs and exclamation points.

10. Jargon-filled corporate speak that only insiders understand.

When organizations let these things happen - in brochures, on web sites, in press releases, blogposts and tweets - one can only surmise that they don’t care whether people think they are stupid, careless and insensitive. You are what you communicate.

This is part 2 of a primer on editing.  Much of this comes from a Folio magazine seminar taught by Peter Jacobi more than 25 years ago.  Jacobi is now professor emeritus at the Indiana University School of Journalism.

What to avoid

Delaying the subject in a sentence

      Bad:        The goals and objectives of writers…

      Good:      The writer’s goals and objectives…

The passive voice

      Bad:        The purchase of hardware is a tedious chore.

      Good:      Buying hardware is tedious.

Excess adjectives

      Bad:        The Internet-enabled, scalable and robust X14AB is a good tool.

      Good:      The X14AB works on the Internet and is able to expand to fit users’ needs.

Hyperbole

      Few actions are outrageous, cities are rarely paralyzed and very few things are vital.

Clichés

Trash high-scalability, high-performance, highly interactive, state-of-the-art and other meaningless phrases.

Pretentious language

      Away with paragon, parameters, debilitate, facilitate.

Newly minted “verbs”

      In general, any word with “ize” and “ate” at the end could be dangerous.  Don’t

      synergize, hypothesize, strategize or caffinate.

Needless words

“he is a man who hunts” should be “he hunts”; “the fact that” is a term we can do without.

Exclamation points

      Except for “World at War!,” there are very few causes for this punctuation.

Using quotations for easily documented facts

      “PlutoView costs $3,000 for a license,” says Joe Magnum.

Backing into sentences

      Bad:        When it comes to electronics, he is an expert.

      Good:      He is an electronics expert.

Non-sequiturs

      His hair flowed majestically, making him a good candidate for the space program.

What to embrace

Direct, short sentences

Repetition, if it makes a sentence simpler

Common words used in a conversational tone

Reinforcing messages by phrasing them in different forms

Using a semicolon for forcefulness:

      Her romances are entertaining; they are full of exciting adventures.

Being specific:

      Bad:        They work on computer models containing millions of polygons.

      Good:      They work on computer models containing 10-million polygons or more.

Sentences in positive form:

      Bad:        He was not very often on time.

      Good:      He usually came late.

You have the power…be good with it

Editing gives you the power to shape messages in a way that will interest, inform and entertain your readers.  Power has its responsibilities, of course.  You must be a benevolent ruler, always keeping in mind the needs of your readers and being gentle with your writers.  May the editing force be with you.

References:

The Art of Editing, Floyd K. Baskette and Jack Z. Sissors, 1971, The Macmillan Company, pp. 418-419

The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, Addison-Wesley Publishing.