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Writing for the web is so different than for print, that most former journalists can’t wrap their heads around how it works. If you don’t have any journalism experience, I’m happy for you. If you do, you’re going to need to rethink the way you approach writing headlines.

One advantage print has over the web is the luxury of time and space. Print articles are stripped of all images and tweeted on Twitter. They don’t get rung through Feedburner or pasted in a Facebook link. In essence, print journalists (or copy editors) have full control over the presentation of their articles and the art that accompanies those articles. When writing for the Web, you’ve got to admit that you don’t have full control over your articles future. It could end up on Delicious, Digg or Reddit. And if it does, you need to concentrate on the one facet of the article that you can control and use to influence people: the headline.

Here are some tips to change the way you approach writing headlines:

1) Headlines should be controversial if at all possible.

2) Headlines should contain facts: names, dates and places…

3) Headlines should not be “cute” or “clever” since you don’t know what context the headline will be read or who will be reading it. Headlines go out in emails, RSS feeders, Twitter, Facebook, the forums, and myriad other places. Those outlets are just as important as your front page (since your goal is to get visitors to your homepage). To do that, our headlines need to tell a complete story to someone who isn’t a regular at your site.

4) Use whole names instead of just last names.

5) Focus on the part of your article that makes it unique. You bring a unique view to the table, and you need to convey that to your readers. If you don’t, they’ll just click that tantalizing headline at The Drudge Report.

Blogs are often written by one- or two-person teams with little professional editing or oversight. Newspapers, on the other hand, are staffed with droves of editors. In fact, some of the biggest papers in the country push stories through eight editors or more before publishing them on paper. Somewhere on that totem pole of newspaper editors sits the noble copy editor.

In a former life, that was my job at the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. Responsibilities? Lay out stories on the page (we were using Quark at the time), edit stories for length and content, and write headlines in the space allotted for each story. That last part about “space allotted” is key. Sometimes in a newspaper, you’ve got room for five-word headlines, sometimes 10, and sometimes two. In the parlance of the time, it was our job to make the headlines “pop” no matter what the length.

If I wasn’t able to write a headline I was happy with, I’d lean over to one of my coworkers (many of whom had been in the industry for 20 years or more), and ask for help. Sometimes, there would be a group of us standing around a computer screen trying to figure out the best headline for a story featured on page A1.

I tell you all this to stress the eternal and undying importance of headlines. Newspapers have this figured out in their particular niche. Bloggers often don’t. Your headline isn’t just a descriptor of what’s inside your story, it’s a call to action. It’s a flag that tells the reader something important lies inside, and they’d be remiss if they didn’t check it out.

Of course, newspaper headlines and blog headlines are different machines with different goals. In a print product, you don’t have to convince the reader to buy your newspaper, since it probably showed up in their driveway that morning. Bloggers need to sell themselves with each and every headline. Newspaper headlines are hampered by design goals. If you can’t fit five words in a headline, you’re going to have to make do with the space for the two words you’ve been allotted. Bloggers have more space and flexibility to say the things they want … and that means their headlines should be BETTER than anything they read in print.

As newspapers struggle to make the transition to the online world, one of their biggest failings is to capitalize on the power of headlines. Too often, they simply take the headline they used for print, retag it for the Web and run. Big mistake. The rules have changed. It’s like getting drafted by a professional baseball team and showing up for practice with an aluminum bat.

It takes time to make the transition, though, and some newspapers ARE reworking the way they approach headlines in the online world. For instance, I tromped over to the New York Times and looked at their “Most Popular” stories. One headline in particular jumped out at me, “Heaven for the Godless?” I followed the link and found an opinion piece on a new survey that showed that 70 percent of Americans believed you could make it heaven by “following a religion other than their own.”

Contrast that headline with this particularly repugnant one: “Bob Herbert: Stop Being Stupid.” I haven’t clicked through to figure out what “Stop Being Stupid” is about because I don’t want to be told I’m stupid. My guess is no one else wants to either.

So, we’ve come to a crossroad: what makes the first headline better than the second? For one, the first headline probably appeals to Americans more than any other nationality. We’ll always choose the path of least resistance to get a grand reward. So, if there’s a way to get to heaven without having to practice a religion, well, I’d like to know about it.

Perhaps the most important thing that makes the first headline better than the second, though, is the fact that it’s controversial. It presents a paradox that feels like it’s daring us to learn more. There is no wiggle room for free thought when you’ve got a headline that says “Stop Being Stupid.”

That brings me to the reason for this post, a guide to writing good headlines from a guy who spent two years doing it five days a week:

1. Intrigue the reader with the promise of more knowledge. We read for one reason: to educate ourselves. It doesn’t matter if we’re seeking info on the gravitational pull of Neptune or the hip gyrations of Shakira, we read because we want to learn more about a particular topic. If you promise readers they’re going to learn about something they’ve never encountered, then they’re far more likely to click your link.

2. Don’t make the reader feel stupid. Of course, this applies just as much to the content of your post as it does to the headline, but readers don’t want to be berated about anything. It’s like a teacher who believes humiliation will help slow learners. You’re more likely to produce the opposite effect. Positive headlines are always more effective than negative ones.

3. Accentuate the controversial. We live in a postmodern world. Nothing’s cut and dry anymore, and it’s easy to find two sides to any story. If that’s the case, don’t shortchange your readers by choosing one side of the story. Find the gray area of the pool and dive right in. That’s where the juicy stuff is.

4. Stay away from puns. I’ll never forget when I was a cub reporter at a small daily paper in North Carolina, The Rocky Mount Telegram. One of my co-workers wrote a military story he was particularly proud of. It had something to do with a soldier recounting his days on the battlefield. After he turned the story in, he came over and said, “I hope the copy desk doesn’t write a cheesy headline for my story. I think it’s one of the first stories I’d be willing to put in my portfolio.” When we finally saw the headline, he groaned, and I started laughing. It read, “Tanks for the Memories.” Puns are the easiest ways to trivialize any topic. If you’re afraid you might be dancing on the line of propriety, you need to pick something more direct.

5. Choose words that “pop.” OK. I’m not a big fan of the word “pop,” but it gets the idea across. Your headlines need to use powerful, active words in the present-tense. Sometimes, all this takes is a trip to the thesaurus at Merriam-Webster. Replace lackluster words with words that punch your readers in their bellies. Another way to find intriguing headlines, is to go to the New York Times Bestseller lists. The books that stand out there not only have unique content, but they often have unique, brandable titles, too. Books like Barack Obama’s, “The Audacity of Hope,” or Artie Lange’s, “Too Fat to Fish.” Both of them use words that don’t crop up that often (“fat” and “audacity”).

6. Accept that you’re a writer and words are your only tool. Too often bloggers look at things in terms of numbers: how many posts they can produce, how many readers they can get, how many clicks they garner. But you’ve got to remember that first and foremost, you’re a writer. I’m going to repeat that again, you’re a writer. The only tool writers have at their disposal are words. So since you’ve chosen to be a writer, you’re going to have to use words properly. Writing a headline in a hurry means you could end up with typos or missing prepositions. There’s no better way to get ignored than by posting something that looks like it was cobbled before you collapsed in bed. Take time to craft your headlines. Newspapers do it because they realize that headlines are the single most important entry point to any story. Bloggers would be well-served to do the same.

Just getting started in Web publishing? Check out my post on picking your domain name, “How to Pick a Domain Name that Ruins Your Web Site.” Your domain name is the only that might be more important than your headlines. Contact Fred Marion at fred(at)webpublishing.me.