What do you do if your headlines are falling flat and need a creative boost?

Start by researching trending topics, keywords, and themes relevant to your audience and industry. Monitor social media platforms, news outlets, and industry publications for emerging trends and popular discussions. Study successful headlines from competitors or similar publications to identify patterns and techniques that resonate with the audience. Analyse language, tone, and headline structures to glean insights for crafting compelling headlines. Experiment with different headline formats, such as lists, questions, or provocative statements, to capture attention and generate curiosity. Incorporate keywords strategically to improve search visibility and relevance.

Keep in relevant, yes -- one way to do that is to think about what different elements in your article help tell the story, and how those might interest varied readers. I write quite a bit about music, especially music related to place, for example. So a headline could address the specific place, or its landscape (eg songs f the sea, music of the Mourne mountains), language, history, creative practice, or other aspects of music, life, culture to do with a specific piece of music. Whatever you are writing about, turn the subject like a kaleidoscope to see what ideas may emerge that are relevant to the story you tell and the people you wish to reach with the telling of it.

This an aspect of headline writing often overlooked. Once you have the idea, though, you can find examples of what you want to reflect in your headlines. I've a colleague who writes a lot about drinking and nightlife; I focus on music and the arts. Though our subjects might overlap at times, you would find us writing very different headlines (and stories) even if we covered the same festival (which we do not usually, but for the sake of illustration...)he might choose words to reflect the party vibe, whereas I'd go with ones telling about discovering historic music on the program, for example. That has to with your subjects matter and approach, of course, and keeping a promise to your readers.

Run a story prompt through an AI program such as ChatGPT. Need a 6-word headline for a story about the closing of a food pantry. Then tweak HED to localize