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  4. Is there benefit to having longer article headlines?

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After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Is there benefit to having longer article headlines?

On-Page Optimization
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  • barberm
    barberm last edited by Dec 12, 2013, 6:42 PM

    I am seeing a trend in digital publishing on sites like HuffPo and others where they are increasing the length of article headlines to 3-4 rows of large type, often containing multiple sentences. Other publishers like CNN.com still have shorter headlines and character counts. Perhaps this is just a design aesthetic, but I am curious if there is any SEO value to having longer headlines assuming you are able to fit your targeted keywords/terms and message in something shorter?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Cyrus-Shepard
      Cyrus-Shepard last edited by Jan 7, 2014, 6:34 PM Jan 7, 2014, 6:34 PM

      I don't think there's a clear answer. Longer headlines are harder to share on some social media sites (especially twitter) and Google won't display much past 55-75 characters in search results.

      But from a user engagement perspective, I bet Huffington post is finding some success with the longer headlines. This probably has as much to do with how they display the headlines on their site, and also how they distribute the content and share, so it doesn't mean this is a system that would work for everyone.

      Best practice remains writing headlines between 55-75 characters.

      But best practices were made to be broken 🙂

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,26 days
      • BenjaminMorel
        BenjaminMorel last edited by Dec 12, 2013, 8:25 PM Dec 12, 2013, 8:25 PM

        I guess this is less of a question about SEO for HuffPost and others than about reader engagement - I'd be fascinated to see whether anybody who runs a news site or blog with a large number of page views (cough Moz cough) has data on this.

        Going with my gut, I would say that longer headlines give the reader more of an idea about exactly what they're going to read, so they are probably more likely to engage with the post than if you used a shorter of headline. Of course, with bounces and other engagement metrics potentially being part of the search engine algorithms that might give you a bit of an SEO boost.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Prospector-Plastics
          Prospector-Plastics last edited by Dec 12, 2013, 7:37 PM Dec 12, 2013, 7:37 PM

          Great question, and I'm mostly responding to be included in other replies. When approaching longer titles for articles, we have used an H1 tag for a succinct 1-line title, followed by an H2 for the rest of the title. Regarding your design aesthetic note, I agree on two levels: 1) short titles look better and 2) are better for the visitor because they are easier to read. Also, stuffing lots of words into a title might look spammy.

          I ran out to HuffingtonPost to see how they do it - their articles run 3 lines probably because of large font size which seems to be the trend these days, and also a fairly narrow site design with limited horizontal space. I think it works, but does make titles a bit rough on the eyes.

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