Chris Barr, Senior Editorial Director and Julie Wildhaber, Professional Development Program Manager led this session.

We learned some of Yahoo's global editorial standards from the authors of the Yahoo! Style Guide.  (All attendees also received this book that recently went on sale.)

Headlines
-It is the reader's first encounter.  It provides the first (and sometimes only) impression with your readers

-Should align with your voice/audience

-A good test for headlines is whether or not you can summarize what your story is about in five to six words.  If so, then it is probably focused.  If not, it probably lacks focus.

-Is it clear what your story is about based on the headline?  Someone should be able to read your headline and subheading and understand what the story will be about.

-You can do a preliminary search to test.

-Does it show what readers should be searching for?

-Make sure that important words are at the front of your headline. (Include what people would be searching for.)

-Headlines help filter stories to reach what the readers want

-It appears in many places: title of story; page title tag; heading in browser tabs; text in bookmarks; header in search results; text in news feed or mobile browser

Four Functions of a Headline:

1. Summary: Accurate, complete, concise information about your story

2. Selection: Helps reader filter

3. Promotion: Motivates potential readers to click

4. Reputation: Reflects your voice and standards

SEO Selection

-Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies for making your page easier to find.

-Search engines basically play matchmaker (they match the words in your page with words people are searching for).

-If you seed your page with the exact words people are searching for, then you are more likely to make a connection.

-Search engines crawl your whole page but give particular attention to the following: title; headline; other bolded headings/subheadings; links (don't just put "click here" - it's a wasted opportunity); bulleted and numbered lists.  Introductions and conclusions are also given extra notice so if you seed keywords in these spots, search engines will like your page more.

How to select keywords

-Make a list of possible search terms. (If a reader was looking for a story on your blog's topic, which words would they try?)

-Test a few of your words on search-volume research tools.  They will give you a list of terms/related terms from most to least used.  You can find such sources at http://styleguide.yahoo.com/resources/research-tools/keyword-research-tools.

-An interesting test keyword example was used.  It was last year's swine flu.  It turned out that more people were searching for "H1N1" than swine flu...by far.

-Another notable tip: people tend to spell out proper names and full words when searching (i.e. Internet Explorer 8 was searched ten times more than "IE8").

An important note was made: SEO is competitive.  Even if these suggested changes don't improve your search rankings, they will still help the readers that you do have.  The bottom line though is that good content is the best "strategy".

-It was noted that it is also important to focus on readability.  People tend to focus on what is at the top left of the page.  Then their eyes dart down to headings and subheadings.  As such, focus on the top of your page.  Also, research recommends no more than 300 words on a page.  That is the most that the average reader will "see".

More Headline "Dos"

-Place most relevant words first

-Try to use the subject-verb-object structure

-Use concrete keywords (i.e. proper nouns)

-Type your draft headline in a search engine to see what comes up. (Use quotes around your phrase to get an exact search.)

-Make it strong and interesting

-Call out what is important

-Make sure that your headline can stand alone

-Stay under 65 characters

-Make sure that the voice is appropriate for the story and your site

You can learn more at styleguide.yahoo.com