The Complete Guide to Writing Captivating Subheadings
How to make your readers keep reading your articles to the end
You’ve written the perfect blog post title. The blog’s first paragraph practically drags your readers kicking and screaming into the story. According to Answer the Public, people are asking tons of questions about your idea. You checked it out on Google Trends and the topic is blazing hot.
You’re so pumped that this is the single most important topic you’ve even written about that the top of your head feels like it’s going to explode into purple smoke.
Fingers shaking in anticipation, you type the first subheading. It’s only one word, but you tell yourself it fits the narrative. You stare at the one word subheading, feeling in your gut that it should say something more. But no worries. Because the idea is so potent, you know it will carry the reader through to the end of the article.
The next subheading has two words. They’re the only words you can think of for the second section of the story. So you give it a heading tag. Now it’s big and bold. The thought crosses your mind that it might not be enough to use only one or two words as a subheading, but the article's idea is so great that the story is writing itself, so you keep typing.
You reach the end of the story, do a quick check for spelling and grammar mistakes, then send it off to a publisher. You anxiously wait for the notice that they publish your story. Instead, the publisher notifies you that they’ve rejected it after they’ve sat on it for 5 days.
You can’t believe it. How could anyone reject such a powerful story? So you send it off to another publisher, and another, until finally a small publisher takes it and publishes it.
You tell yourself that it doesn’t matter that it’s a small publisher. Your story is so powerful it will go viral.
After a week, you look at the stats and the story has had 10 views and 2 reads with no comments.
Discouraged, you wonder what happened.
Do readers skim first and read later?
People have learned that publications, writers, and advertisers will write interesting titles that get people to buy their magazine, click through to the article, or purchase a product. And we’ve all experienced, after clicking on or reading the first paragraph or two of the article, that the most valuable and informative part of the story was the title. We end up disappointed because the content that the title promised is weak, boring, and uninformative.
To save ourselves from laboring through reading articles that have no meat on the bone, we’ve become experts at scanning. And the things we read first are the subheadings.
The 3 types of subheadings that make readers stop reading
1. Why uninformative, obvious subheadings bore readers
If you’re looking for a can of green beans, you don’t need a title, subtitle, and subheadings. All you need to know is that you’re buying a can of green beans and not a can of corn.
I recently wrote an article about What a Caged Lion Can Teach You About Freedom. In researching the story, I found an article about captive lions. The title promised to tell the reader everything about captive lions. But when I scanned the article, the first subheading was “Lions are dangerous”.
If the author had created a subheading that promised more than the obvious, I might have kept reading. “The #1 secret of handling lions” would have kept me reading. Everyone knows lions are dangerous, but most of us don’t know how lion handlers do their job. What’s the secret to staying safe when working with lions?
2. How misleading, mysterious, or deceptive subheadings confuse the reader
People love mysteries until it feels like they’re being tricked. Subheadings need to give clues about what the section is about. And the clues should entice without leaving the reader wondering what the connection is between the subheading and the content.
It’s easy to feel that subheadings need to “trick” the reader into continuing to read. Effective subheadings need clarity. When an author writes a subheading, it should hint at what lies ahead. The result should be the reader wants to know more without wondering how the next section fits within the story.
For instance, in an article about how fasting can help people with diabetes lower their blood sugar, a subheading that says “Eating fatty foods makes fasting easier” is confusing. The reader wants to know how fasting will bring down blood sugar levels. Throwing in a subheading about eating fatty foods might be misleading. Instead, a subheading of, “3 simple ways to make fasting easier” will make the reader want to read more. One of the three ways could be about eating fatty foods.
3. Why spill-the-beans subheadings leave nothing to entice the reader
This is a common mistake. In an article called, “The perfect gift for your wife’s 60th birthday” the subheadings draw the reader from one thought to the next. But if a subheading is “Women love roses. Give your wife a dozen roses for her birthday” the subheading tells it all.
When writing subheadings, ask yourself if there is any reason for the reader to read that section based upon the subheading alone.
Here’s an example of how to avoid spilling the beans in the subheading. Think of the subheading as wooing the reader. “The one gift that every woman loves to get for her birthday,” is much better because it makes the reader want to know what the one gift is that women love so he can buy it for his wife.
How to write captivating subheadings that readers can’t resist
Follow these simple steps to write subheadings that readers love to read.
- Write your article without worrying about writing perfect subheadings. You want to get the article written without stopping, so think of the subheadings as placeholders.
- When you have finished writing the post, go back and read it. Do the subheadings entice you to read the following blocks of text? Do any of them spill-the-beans or confuse you?
- Look at each section of your article as if it were its own blog. Does the subheading read like a title? Is it relevant to the section?
- What is the purpose of each section? Do the subheadings support the section? Does each section build on each other?
- Have you used words like how, when, who, what, why, and do to start each subheading? People are curious by nature, so use it to your advantage. When you ask a provocative question as a subheading, be sure to answer the question in that section. If you don’t answer the question, your reader will stop reading and feel disappointed.
- Work your long-tail keywords into one or two of your subheadings.
- Reread your subheadings and be brutally honest with yourself. Do the subheadings beg you to read more?
Nielsen Norman Group did a study on how long people stay on a web page. They found “Users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer.”
That’s just about enough time to read the title, subtitle, and then scan the article. Having clear and enticing subheadings will also keep users reading your article.
Do you use subheadings in your articles?
