Live News Mode transforms every RSS/NewsAPI/Tavily item into a WordPress post — but each item’s original title rarely reads like a good WordPress title on your site. Some are ambiguous (“Big update lands”), some are clickbaity, some sound formal, some sound casual. AI Content Generator’s Title preset dropdown in the Live News Mode panel handles this: pick a preset and the AI rewrites every incoming title in that style before publishing.
Five presets are available: Keep original, SEO optimised, Engaging, Formal, and Question. Each one changes the title’s shape, length and voice while preserving the underlying news. This tutorial walks through what each preset does, when to pick which, how to combine the preset with the rest of Live News Mode’s settings, and how to A/B test presets against real CTR on your blog.
By the end you’ll have chosen the right preset per Live News Mode campaign — and know exactly why — with concrete example rewrites for each preset so your future self remembers what you picked and why.
Where the Title preset lives
Inside any campaign editor, enable Live News Mode and scroll to the Title preset dropdown. The dropdown appears after News source, language and cadence — because those decisions come first, then you pick how the AI reshapes each item’s title.
Preset 1 — Keep original
The plugin uses the source’s title verbatim, without rewriting. Right for two specific scenarios: aggregator-style blogs where preserving the original phrasing is part of the value proposition (“we curate the news, we don’t spin it”), and campaigns pulling from publications whose titles are already SEO-optimised (Reuters, TechCrunch, Bloomberg — their titles are usually excellent as-is).
The downside: duplicate content risk. If Google indexes your post with the same title as the original, you risk being seen as a copy site rather than an aggregator. The plugin mitigates this by adding a canonical hint pointing back to the original, but for scale it’s often better to rewrite lightly.
Example. Original: “OpenAI releases GPT-4.2 with improved reasoning”. Kept: “OpenAI releases GPT-4.2 with improved reasoning”.
Preset 2 — SEO optimised
The default and the safest choice for most editorial blogs. The AI rewrites the title to include the main keyword early, keeps the length under 60 characters, avoids clickbait phrasing, and produces a title that reads well in Google search results.
Under the hood the preset sends the AI a specific instruction set: keep the main entity/action from the original, front-load the SEO keyword, cut to 55–60 chars, avoid “you won’t believe” and similar clickbait, prefer active voice. The result is titles Google Search rewards and readers trust.
Example. Original: “OpenAI releases GPT-4.2 with improved reasoning”. SEO optimised: “GPT-4.2 launch: OpenAI announces better reasoning”.
Preset 3 — Engaging
The AI rewrites the title with more voice and curiosity, targeting higher CTR at the cost of slightly less SEO discipline. Right for blogs that get most of their traffic from social shares, newsletters or homepage listings — surfaces where headline shape drives clicks more than search intent.
The preset instruction set pushes the AI toward: lead with the benefit or the surprise, use verbs that evoke action, add a subtle emotional layer, keep it under 65 chars. Careful: the line between “engaging” and “clickbait” is thin. Test on the first few articles to make sure you’re on the right side.
Example. Original: “OpenAI releases GPT-4.2 with improved reasoning”. Engaging: “GPT-4.2 is here — and it thinks smarter, not harder”.
Preset 4 — Formal
The AI produces titles in a professional, corporate-appropriate voice — no exclamation marks, no colloquialisms, no rhetorical questions. Right for B2B, institutional, or professional-audience sites where a casual tone would erode trust.
The preset instructions target the tone: use noun-phrase constructions, avoid contractions, prefer “announcement”, “release”, “launches” over verbs like “drops” or “unveils”. Length is left flexible (up to 70 chars) because formal writing tends to be slightly denser.
Example. Original: “OpenAI releases GPT-4.2 with improved reasoning”. Formal: “OpenAI announces GPT-4.2 release with enhanced reasoning capabilities”.
Preset 5 — Question
The AI rewrites every title as a question the article answers. Right for FAQ-style content, sites optimising for “People also ask” snippet placement in Google, or audiences that prefer the question format for discoverability.
The preset instruction set forces the title into interrogative structure — starts with What / How / Why / When / Should / Does — and pushes the article body to answer that specific question in the first paragraph. Excellent for AEO (answer engine optimisation) and Google Featured Snippets.
Example. Original: “OpenAI releases GPT-4.2 with improved reasoning”. Question: “What’s new in OpenAI’s GPT-4.2 and does it really reason better?”.
Step 1 — Pick the preset that matches your primary traffic source
The single decision framework: where does traffic come from on this blog?
- Google Search organic → SEO optimised (front-loaded keywords, safe length).
- Social + newsletter → Engaging (higher CTR from headline shape).
- Featured Snippets / People also ask → Question (matches Google’s question index).
- B2B / institutional / professional audiences → Formal (trust signal).
- Aggregator model, curated news feed → Keep original (preserves source phrasing).
Step 2 — Run a two-week A/B
If two presets could reasonably apply, run a two-week A/B. Duplicate the Live News Mode campaign, change only the Title preset (A: SEO optimised, B: Engaging), let each run for two weeks, then compare in Google Search Console (impressions and CTR) and in your analytics (clicks from social).
Two weeks is the minimum window to overcome the day-of-week variance. Any shorter and you’re reading noise; any longer and the preset difference gets swamped by content-quality drift.
Step 3 — Combine with additional tone notes
The preset gives you the shape; the Additional tone notes field (in SEO brief (titles)) layers your brand voice on top. Practical additions:
- “Never start a title with ‘Discover'”.
- “Always include the year for evergreen topics”.
- “Prefer numbers over adjectives (‘4 ways’ beats ‘many ways’)”.
- “Avoid superlatives like ‘best ever’ or ‘ultimate'”.
Four lines are enough. The preset takes care of the structural layer; the notes take care of the voice layer.
Common misuses
- Engaging for B2B audiences — reads as unprofessional. Formal or SEO optimised instead.
- Keep original for aggregation from small publications — you inherit their weak titles. SEO optimised produces better output at almost no cost.
- Question for pure news — news should state facts, not ask questions. Save Question for evergreen “how does X work” content.
- Formal for consumer blogs — reads as distant. Engaging or SEO optimised are the right choices.
Troubleshooting
- SEO optimised produces titles too similar to the original — the source titles were already SEO-friendly. Try Engaging for differentiation, or add “Rewrite entirely, don’t just tweak” in additional tone notes.
- Engaging produces clickbait — add “Never use ‘you won’t believe’, ‘shocking’, ‘must-see'” to additional tone notes.
- Formal titles feel stiff even for B2B — combine Formal with “Prefer verbs over noun phrases” in the notes.
- Question titles all sound the same — add “Vary between What / How / Why / Should openings” to the notes.
- Different articles ignore the preset — the campaign has queued titles generated under the old preset. Re-run news fetch.
You’re done
That’s the full Title preset system: five presets covering the range from verbatim to full rewrite, each with a specific fit — SEO optimised for search, Engaging for social, Formal for B2B, Question for AEO, Keep original for pure aggregation. Pick based on primary traffic source, A/B test at the borderline, layer additional tone notes for brand voice.
From here every Live News Mode campaign has titles that fit the surface they’re published on — indexed cleanly by Google, clicked from social, shared in newsletters. A single dropdown choice removes hours of manual title editing per week for a running news operation.