When Jakob Nielsen praises the BBC....
"Italy buries first quake victims", "Romania blamed over Moldova riots", "Ten arrested in UK anti-terrorism raids". All BBC News headlines, and all examples of the "World's Best Headlines" says usability guru Jakob Nielsen in his latest column.
Fine, but Jakob could also have mentioned in the piece that the BBC is on the client list of the Nielsen Norman Group, of which he is a principal. That aside, what really makes the blood boil is this: "So why is the BBC so good when most others are so bad? Maybe it's in the BBC's blood..." Perhaps the reason that the BBC is so good might have something to do with the income revealed in its 2005-2006 Annual Report: £3.1 billion in licence fees collected from householders; £620 million from BBC Commercial Businesses; £260 million from the World Service, of which £239 million was from grants (primarily from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office); £24 million from providing content to overseas broadcasters and concert ticket sales; £15 million from subscriptions and £5 million from other sources.
Why, if Rainy Day had a few of those millions, we'd be able to write world-beating headlines, too. And, anyway, what's so great about those BBC headlines? If we take Italy buries first quake victims and look at the URL we get this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7990029.stm. Now, let's take a look at a similar headline from the Daily Telegraph, which is not allowed to impose a tax on Britain's householders. Italian earthquake: more than 150 dead, Silvio Berlusconi confirms. Unlike the lazy Beeb URL, the one here, shows off the craft of an SEO artist, who has to make it work for a living by using elements such as http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5116660/ and Italian-earthquake-more-than-150-dead-Silvio-Berlusconi-confirms.html to satisfy the needs of the all-powerful spiders. That address contains not just information; it is crammed with the kind of words that will help rank the story . That's the kind of thing you have to do, if you can't count on collecting a billion-pound guarantee every year.
By the way, Rainy Day has been unstinting in its praise for Jakob Nielsen, and we've bought the books and we've evangelized his philosophy at every available opportunity. So this is not about anything else that hating to see games played on a field made uneven by the unfair subsidization of one team. Guess all the above rules out our prospects for this London gig.
Comments
Success breeds success... so maybe it's a combo of blood and money. While many of Rainy Day's posts are informative and often entertaining, I fail to see where you're going with this one. It's like Eamonn Dunphy saying "Man Utd are the best. It's in their blood" and someone replying that it's because of all the money and resouces the club has at its disposal. Of course it has to have those resources to be the best, just like the BBC (very reliable also). While the Daily Telegraph may not be an Ecclesfleet Utd, it probably does weigh in at about an Ispwich. It's a rather mute point you're making...
Posted by: shoulderghost | May 5, 2009 11:11 AM
But Man Utd can not lean back and expect the taxpayer to fund their purchases and their investments. That's my point. It's wrong to give the BBC the kind of money it gets. Why can't the British government follow Barry O'B's advice to "spread the wealth around"? In that way, more media would prosper.
Posted by: Eamonn | May 5, 2009 7:16 PM
Wow.
Upset you are.
BBC is a socialist, thieving organization. YES.
There are 2 kinds of headline writing and they have almost nothing in common.
1. Writing for print. You are on the page and the headline is designed to suck you into the article. Clever, punny, funny, witty headlines are great. You are already on the page. You are human and understand puns.
2. Writing for search engines. (Jakob is writing about these headlines.) Search engines would not know a pun from a hole-in-the-ground. You are NOT on the page. You are surfing. The headline needs to be indexed properly so you will click to the page.
For example:
"Romania blamed over Moldova riots" or as Fark would write: "Moldy Romans riot". (Perfect example of why I don't have a job with Fark). You get my meaning.
If you want to learn about headline writing for search engines, then visit BBC and Fark for examples of what to do and not do.
I leave you with: "Ontario places cameras in forests to prove Cougars exist, Ashton Kutcher set out as bait"
Posted by: Dave Barnes | May 6, 2009 4:10 AM
I think the crucial thing about comparing Telegraph and BBC headlines lies with the destination.
There is nothing to stop the BBC website having long, SEO-friendly headlines on their website. In fact, I we'd (disclosure: I work for the BBC) love to have that -- except that when a BBC sub writes a headline, it is limited to around 40 characters.
This isn't just so it fits in to the web slots, but the same headlines will find themselves on Teletext, Red Button, Titan (those big screens at train stations), online news tickers, mobile phones and all sorts. There are many more which I can't think of from the top of my head.
Now, you could argue that the BBC could just get people on various platforms to change the headlines -- but is that really a good way to spend money? I think hiring one person to write a headline -- however SEO-unfriendly -- and have it everywhere possible is a good way of running things.
But -- I agree with you about the URLs. They could be better. There's hope in some of the recent site redesigns -- take a look at the BBC World Service site (www.bbcworldservice.com) which incorporates words as well as numbers into URLs. Admittedly, we could still be making more use of them for SEO, but it's a leap in the right direction.
Posted by: Dave Lee | May 6, 2009 1:15 PM