How do you designate the story's subject online?

I was reading <a href="http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/84964/">this thread</a> about styles for referring to high schools. Someone made the point that your print story may have a kicker that reads "high school football" but you lose that for the web.

When you have a subject kicker, a photo, maybe a graphic, a box score, etc. in print, it's easy for people to pick up context clues that the subject is high school football.

But how do you get around that online? Do you rewrite the headline for the web? Do you have a special index page or graphic that designates the subject? Any other tricks your site has picked up for helping readers to know what the subject is?

 

At a minimum, yes you should be re-writing the headline for the web. This has the added benefit of being search-engine friendly in most cases.

 

When I post stories to my blog or to the breaking news section of our site - not when it's just going under the 'HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS' label on our sports portion of the site - I'll include a tag for it. For instance:

High school football: Podunk upsets top-ranked Shelbyville

High school softball: Podunk pitcher Miller to sign with City Community College

I've found it's one of those things that may not look great but that people read right through and get clarity from, and it doesn't make the important part of the headline unwieldy.