Headline tester

What each check means

A headline has two jobs and they pull in different directions. It has to be specific enough that the right person stops, and short enough that it survives being cut off by a search result or a social card. The checks below are the two tests combined.

Length: 30 to 60 characters

Google truncates title tags on pixel width, not character count, so the exact cut-off moves with the letters used. As a working rule, 30 to 60 characters survives intact, and anything past about 60 is a gamble. The headline you write for the page and the title tag can differ — the H1 has no length limit. This tester treats 30–60 as the band because it is the one that has to survive both contexts.

Front-loading

The first three or four words do most of the work, because they are what a scanning reader sees before deciding. Invoicing: how to get paid on time front-loads the subject. A few thoughts on the subject of invoicing spends nine words before saying anything. The tester flags openers such as a few thoughts on, some notes about and everything you need to know about.

Numbers and specificity

A numeral is the cheapest specificity you can add: seven becomes 7, 200 UK small business websites beats lots of websites. It earns points here because it reliably earns attention, but only when the number is true and the article delivers it.

Power words, and their limit

The tester recognises words that carry a concrete promise — checklist, template, guide, free, mistake, before, without — and words that only sound energetic. One is enough. A headline stacked with them reads like an advert, which is the opposite of what a business audience responds to.

Filler and vagueness

Solutions, innovative, world-class, cutting-edge, leverage and synergy cost points because they are unfalsifiable. So does a headline that could belong to any company in the sector. If the sentence works with a competitor's name in place of yours, it is not saying anything yet.

How to fix a weak headline

1. Write the headline as a sentence to a colleague, then delete the first four words.
2. Replace the abstraction with the object: not improve your processes but invoice in five minutes.
3. If there is a real number in the article, put it in the headline.
4. Read it at 60 characters and check nothing important is in the part that gets cut.
5. Run the final version through the readability checker with the first paragraph, because a headline that over-promises and a first line that under-delivers is the actual reason people leave.

Title, H1 and meta description are three different things

The H1 on the page can be as long as it needs to be. The title tag is what appears in search results and browser tabs, and it is the one with the hard limit. The meta description is a separate sentence entirely. If you are writing all three at once, the meta description generator handles the third, and the guide to title tags and meta descriptions explains where Google overrides you.

Questions

Does a higher score mean more traffic?

No. The score measures whether the headline is clear, specific and the right length. Whether it ranks depends on the page behind it. A well-scored headline on a thin page is still a thin page.

Why is 60 characters the limit?

It is not a rule Google publishes. It is the point where most title tags start to be truncated in a desktop result, based on pixel width. Narrow letters fit more, wide letters fewer.

Should the keyword be first?

Only if it reads naturally first. Search intent matters more than position: a headline that matches what the searcher wanted beats one that front-loads a phrase they did not type.

Related: headlines that earn the click, writing for featured snippets, and the structure that ranks.