When you’ve missed the big final of
your favourite sporting tournament, what do you do? You quickly catch the
highlights! That way you can see the most important moments in the game and
still follow what happened. And if you want to see the details, you can wait
for a full rerun.
Subheadings are like the highlights of
your article. Readers should be able to see by your subheadings whether your
article has the information they need. With a big lump of text, all of your
information is useless at first glance. Here are some helpful tips on using
subheadings.
Map out the article
Readers should be able to skim just
your subheadings and from there get an idea of what exactly your article is
about. In other words, your subheadings alone should be telling your readers a
short story on it’s own. Think of it as a map – you’re giving all the major
destination points of your article. So each subheading should present a new
idea, and it should give the reader a clear idea of what is to follow in the
section that follows.
Give just the highlights
That being said, you also don’t want to
give away your entire article in just the subheadings. You should give just
enough information so that your readers know what they can expect in the
article. But be careful not to provide too much information, remember – you
still want them to read the whole article. So you want to provide an outline,
and at the same time you want to intrigue your readers and make them want to
read on.
Sell the benefits
In order for them to keep reading, readers need to feel like
they’ll be gaining more, the further they keep reading. So, just as you promise
a benefit in the title of your article, you need to spell out the benefits of
each section. This helps to keep the reader interested.
Use them frequently
You want to use subheadings as much as
you can – because the more you can cut your copy into smaller, manageable bits,
the better. This is especially true if you’re writing for the web. With that in
mind however, you also don’t want to overdo it. Subheadings are there to add to
and enhance your copy, not replace it. The general rule is that every new idea,
point or section deserves its own subheading. So scrutinize your article to see
how many sections you can possibly break it up into.
