Crocstar Media » AOL

Rewriting a headline for the homepage

Christine — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:24:43 +0000

I’ve been working on the AOL homepage today and thought I’d share an example of how to rewrite a headline for a homepage.

The lifestyle channel had written an article about how eating from a red plate could help you to lose weight - and you can see below the headline is very straightforward. However, it pretty much gives everything away, so you’d only click through to find out why. Scroll down to see how I rewrote the headline for the homepage.

I’ve rewritten the headline for the homepage so it teases the content and gives the user a reason to click through. There’s enough information here so that you know it’s going to be an article about managing your weight, it’s something to do with colour and it’s easy to apply (it ‘might just work for you’). The headline doesn’t over-promise, nor does it give everything away.

On-page headline: ‘Eating from a red plate could help you to lose weight’
Homepage headline: ‘This colourful diet trick might just work for you’

Let me know if you’d like to see more examples like this – and please share how you’d have rewritten it.

Want to learn the secrets to getting those sweet retweets?

Christine — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:45:12 +0000

With the aim of sharing some of our writing knowledge gained at places like the BBC, ITV, Yahoo!, AOL, Magic FM and Heat, my fellow editor Sue Keogh from Sookio and I gave a workshop as part of the Social Media Week London conference.

Our session covered:

how to write a killer headline
crafting tweets to get them retweeted
writing for Facebook and Twitter
bringing it all together with an example from AOL and the Saturdays
sharing our favourite dos and don’ts when writing for social media.

Feedback included:

‘Informal but informative’

‘Very informative, common sense approach’

‘The examples really helped with a current campaign’

‘Lots of great tips’

‘Great takeaways’

We’ll be offering more workshops in the following areas in the very near future. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.

Writing the perfect headline
How to write a good blog post
Writing for Facebook as a brand
How to write well on Twitter for brands

We held the event at the AOL building on Capper Street. As you’d expect it’s all bright, fluffy cushions on funky sofas and glass staircases. In fact, it was a fantastic venue due to its central location, huge conference room with comfortable chairs and the lovely spread of sandwiches and cakes they put on. Thanks AOL!

Write up on the session by Jonathan Mathias account manager from Johnson King

New clients, new opportunities

Christine — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:40:10 +0000

I’ve just started working for a new client, Jupiter, based in Nottingham. In their words: “Jupiter is a creative communications agency specialising in retail and consumer brands”. Jupiter’s clients include Capital One, Wilkinson and Argos.

I’ve been proofreading, copywriting and getting lost trying to find people in their huge building. It’s great fun and I’m expanding my experience all the time. The main thing I’ve noticed is that the style guide is king.

With this is mind I’ve tracked down a guide on how to create your own style guide. Any good web copywriter will create a bespoke one for your site when they send you the words for your site. Even a basic list to keep you consistent is a good place to start.