Too clever for search

To attract more visitors to their websites, newspapers are still looking to master the art of search engine optimization, a quest that's changing how some papers write headlines, according to CNET.

Dispensing with the long-held tradition of trying to be clever in their writing of headlines, newspapers are apparently now focusing on the value of descriptive, keyword-focused headlines as a way to draw searchers. Papers that are already doing this well, such as the Boston Globe, are finding great success by paying attention to how headlines affect search behavior.

The title tag - the text that appears at the top of the browser window - is also a focus of papers seeking to increase their share of searchers. That's because headlines and that tage are extremely important to search engines and can help a page's ranking within search results.

The URL for Boston Globe stories contain the date of the story as well as a snippet of the headline. That kind of search-centric thinking has penetrated the paper to become part of the headline creation process.