Much like other news websites desperate for eyes and clicks, we at Echo often abandon creativity for information’s sake when writing headlines.

Search engines have made life easier. But they’ve made life mind numbing for the headline writer. Once a chance to flex his or her imaginative muscle, headline writing has become an exercise in summarizing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is exactly what it sounds like – writing headlines and teases that will maximize the amount of people that come to your site. Boooooring.

Humor, wit and obscurity are left to the print people – most of the time. Every now and then if we’re feeling clever, feisty or our editor’s gone for the day, we try to make you laugh or raise an eyebrow.

Here is a list of some of our favorite headlines of 2011:

1.) Volunteers do light housekeeping while lighthouse keeping

2.) Beachcombers experience Lake Superior whale burps

3.) Dog poop fouls Great Lakes air

4.) Growers smell trouble in stink bug invasion

5.) Crooks and cooking grease: Some dump it, others steal it

6.) More federal greenbacks to back more greens in schools

7.) Great Lakes: A ship with no name in search of a captain

8.) Michigan’s oil spill: A scientist gets sucked in

9.) Are you hot? Then you probably believe in global warming

10.) Help us with some of that wisdom-of-crowds-social-media stuff

11.) Invasive but tasty: Great Lakes fish dine on bloody-red cocktails

12.) Feeding geese? Don’t!

13.) Lake Erie on Prozac

14.) Boat tax break may be thrown overboard

15.) Michigan bar owners still fuming over the smoking ban