How The Huffington Post Finds Headlines

What makes a great headline? Well, the Huffington Post has got a few ideas on how to choose the perfect ones. After all, a headline is a newspaper's or Web site's way of selling its product. A headline must be grabbing and informative at the same time in order to draw readers and keep them on your site.

Since September, Josh Young, the HuffPost's social media editor, has solicited better headlines from time to time through Twitter. While this way of developing new headlines isn't the best, it does make great use of the readership.

The HuffPost also applies A/B testing to some of its lead headlines. Using this method, one headline is shown to some readers, while another headline is shown to another group of people. After only a few minutes -- which is plenty of time for a high-traffic, continually-updated site like the HuffPost -- the headline that generated the most traffic becomes the headline that everyone sees when they log on to the site.

This method definitely has merit. By using A/B testing, the HuffPost can see which headline is best. Of course, this method only selects the best of two possible options, so in theory there could be several better options out there that weren't written. Still, A/B testing is a good option to crafting better headlines that seems to be working well for the HuffPost.

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