Captivating Headlines- Are they the make or break of a successful reporter?

After writing our first article, I found my most difficult and/or time-consuming area was coming up with a title to draw the reader in. I finally came up with one, but then it failed to relate to the general premise of my story. However, it did give me a whole new compelling twist. The issue here is the level of importance of a spellbinding headline. With the immense amount of articles there are to read online, writers have to be appealing. This might be a bad technique, but should the headline be the new lead? Should that be the basis for the story? Sure facts are essential, but what about a reporter's success- it is based off of readership and it's level of effectiveness. Good headlines could be funny, intriguing, informative, mysterious, metaphorical, descriptive, emotional or all of the above (if one even has the creative power to do that). Headlines used to take up a good 24 column inches and due to the means of new media and easier access to copious amounts of information, the New York Times can barely fit a headline into a square inch. Web sites are even worse when it comes to a cluttered and profuse number of headlines. Pictures and text seem to be the dominating force nowadays. My point is, the headline is a very important entity. For those who skim the paper, headlines will be what draws them into your story. For those that surf the web for specific topics, the headline will be the keywords that they type into Google to come across your story. Journalists would be wise to do a little keyword research on their subject and include popular keywords that relate to their topic into their headline. Whether you are writing the headline first, last, or even during, the headline must be captivating. Boring headlines or headlines that fail to be relative to people's life and make them excited and concerned citizens are virtually pointless. Part of the craft of journalism for more than a century has been to think up clever titles and headlines. Let's not let powerful pictures and clutter get the better of our clever 3-8 word showcase of our hard work and ideas. But my original "headline ponder" remains- can a headline make or break a reporter's success?