Catch Readers' Interest With Headlines

Text, not pictures or multimedia, grabs visitor's attention when first they visit your enewsletter. This was reported in a 2004 study done by several research groups (The Poynter Institute,the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools). Furthermore, the report disclosed that "dominant headlines" - not photographs - most often draw the eye when entering a page.

The study goes on to say that all headlines are not created equal. Some draw visitors in and encourage them to read the text below. But others act like visual stop signs. For instance, undefined headlines discourage visitors from reading further and acted as "visual breaks" that discouraged people from looking at items beyond the break.

The bottom line is that this study shows how important it is to create readable headlines and section headers.

Note that this applies equally to web pages.

Prescott "Pete" Lustig
Senior Marketing Strategist
www.loopconsulting.com