Since officially launching our AI headline generator back in January 2024, we’re constantly reviewing performance and iterating as needed for optimal results. We’ve also been collecting feedback from our clients and making adjustments to the AI headline and metadata optimizer.
Collectively as a team, both from a strategic and technical standpoint, we’ve invested hundreds of hours in prompt engineering (check out our best AI prompt tips). It’s all geared toward delivering the best possible outputs, which makes all of our lives easier.
With that in mind, we’ve deployed a new version of the SEO Headline prompt that emphasizes alternative headlines should be within 55 characters or less. Leading SEO platform Semrush recommends title tags (<title>), which we call SEO Headlines, should be 70 characters or less and this falls well within that limit. Anything longer will often get cut off by SERPs (search engine results pages) and it’s a missed opportunity to engage with users with a concise, to-the-point headline.
The reason we chose 55 characters as the cutoff is because many sites append “[SiteName.com]” at the end of their meta titles and this leaves room for that. For example, any post on Brit + Co has the default meta title format of “[SEO Headline] - Brit + Co” which adds 12 characters including the spaces. Most results from AI come back around 50–54 characters or less with room to spare. The examples in the output above range from 34–47 characters each.
If you’re not familiar with our AI headline generator, it speeds up the process of selecting the best phrases, titles, social media headlines, and meta descriptions. This frees up an editor or writer’s time to work on other things instead. While it’s designed for article pages and embedded within our Entry Editor for ease of use, recommendations can be used beyond an article page, like in social media posts or newsletters.
Learn more about how our AI headline generator works, including screenshots.
Don’t have the AI headlines generator turned on for your account just yet? Get in touch with your account manager to learn about activating AI editorial tools or our other AI offerings.
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