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Why You Should Use Passive Voice In Web Headings
Oops! I’m not meant to say that.
I mean, what would Germaine Greer have to say about that?
Actually, she would approve. When Germaine Greer, in “The Female Eunuch,” wanted to stress what a woman gave away in a traditional marriage, she used the passive voice.
Grammar zealots and classic literature writers, bear with me. There is a point to this.
Web Headlines Benefit From The Passive Voice
We ain’t writing English literature or old school journalism here. We’re referring to using the passive voice in web headlines.
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen writes at Alertbox: “Active voice is best for most web content, but using passive voice can let you front-load important keywords in headings, blurbs and lead sentences. This enhances scannability and thus SEO effectiveness.”
See, I told you there was a point to this.
Writers are often taught to avoid the passive voice, especially in things like headlines. But there’s no grammatical rule that says you shouldn’t use it.
Err Wait A Sec… What IS The Passive Voice?
The passive voice is a grammatical form where the subject of a sentence is the object of its main verb. For example:
“We were invited by our friends to attend their party.”
If you were to write this in the active voice, the sentence would be:
“Our friends invited us to attend their party.”
Active voice is usually better than using the passive voice because it’s more direct and to the point. Generally, readers respond better to active voice because it’s a direct representation of what’s happening. Their brain doesn’t have to work as hard to figure it out.
That means readers’ brains work harder getting meaning out of passive sentences. It’s easier to understand a sentence written using the active voice. Readers have less chance of getting confused and usability increases when users need fewer mental transformations to convert a sentence into actionable understanding.
When writing web content, our goal is always to create an experience for our readers… a pleasurable experience. That means it’s up to you to make the reading process easy for your reader. For example, typography, colors and spacing are important elements that must be considered in the design of web pages to ensure a pleasurable reading experience.
So is using active or passive voice in your web content.
When Is It OK To Use The Passive Voice?
Users scan Web content in an F-pattern, and often read only the first two words of a paragraph. Usability studies show that the eye scans down the left edge of any text; so you need to get the most relevant keywords into the opening of your sentences.
That means you may want to take the opportunity to front-load the first two words of your headline or post title.
For example, “Nike runners are worn by more athletes than any other shoe.” Don’t say “More athletes wear Nike runners than any other shoe.”
Nielsen says that the passive voice enables you to put keywords and key concepts at the front of the headline, making it easier for people who scan headlines. It also helps the reader to understand the real meaning words at the beginning.
Selecting the words to use on a page title or headline is a design consideration.
Nielsen advises “selecting the first two words is probably the highest-impact ROI-boosting design decision you’ll make. Front-loading important keywords trumps most other design considerations.”
Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Shae is Miss Sassy and her blog sassywebwords.com provides essential web writing and user experience advice and resources so your visitors read your website like it’s the New York Times. Web content often gets buried beneath millions of web pages, making your content invisible to your target market. Don’t be ignored. Let Miss Sassy help you find your inner Carrie Bradshaw and turn your website into a Time Square billboard. Visit sassywebwords.com for the sassiest website writing advice around.
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super useful! i’m so curious to see how the web is going to completely transform the skills we use to communicate –we’re all becoming more aware of how we take in graphical information and are driven by communication we aren’t yet trained to understand how we are processing, if that makes sense. words will always be there, but one day we’ll read images and movement (how we take in information in interactive media) with the same level of aware comprehension. rock on thanks for sharing!
Hey you rock on Esther. What you said is spot on. Words will always be there but the Internet is rapidly moving to an interactive and graphical environment that will probably require a whole new level of comprehension. But I do believe words and written content will still be as important.
When I read your title, I automatically thought to myself, “You’re ‘supposed to’ use the active voice.” Also, when you share your posts on social media and other places, it’s often only the title that people see. If it’s catchy and active, they’re more likely to click through to check the post out. But you’ve made a good point about keywords and reading patterns. I think that it’s valid for sub-heads throughout your posts . . . not necessarily for the main headline/title . . . but I suppose the point is flexibility. We can be free to write our headlines in whatever way is best for readers, SEO and impact.
Leanne. I agree. I wouldn’t use passive voice all the time. The headline was meant to grab your attention and stop you in your tracks. I know what I wrote goes against the status quo. There are always to follow and most of the time, they are there for good reasons. But as Jakob Nielsen explains, using the passive voice in web headings can be good for scannability and SEO. It just depends on what your priorities are.
Shae–your “first two words” tip is fascinating and was new to me. Thanks!
My pleasure Mary. You can thank Jakob Nielsen for the tip
I’m far more concerned about the use of camel-case in headlines. What’s the history there? I think it makes them harder to scan and in some cases impossible to read (when proper nouns are involved).
I noticed you use camel-case above, so would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Hi Nate. Interesting observation. I don’t have any history or data about camel-case but now I want to find out. What makes you think I used camel-case? I used title case in the above post. I don’t like camel-case either because I agree it’s really bad for scannability.
[...] And on the topic of headings, also read Why You Should Use Passive Voice in Web Headings [...]