When it comes to writing and editing, my mantra has always been “less, but better.” That also applies to titles. Think of the editor slicing words off the computer screen, trying to chisel out the perfect headline that’s clear and entertaining. Print titles still manage to pull this off, which is probably why I get so much enjoyment out of our brainstorming sessions for The Contently Quarterly.
Online, however, more is better. A study from Polar, a branded content technology company, found that headlines with 90 to 99 characters had the best click-through rate: .43 percent. Performance trended upward as the number of characters increased. Titles between 10 and 19 characters had the lowest CTR, which was .12 percent. The report, which ran from January to August 2017, included 10,627 branded content headlines.
As concision has given way to excess, publishers and brands now compete for attention with…
