Think of subheads as the icing on the cake.

Skimmers look at subheads to learn what content you’re offering on a web page, blog post or news release. This creates the layer cake eye-gazing pattern — on an eyetracking heat map, it shows up as a series of horizontal lines.

That helps visitors find what they want quickly.

Without subheads to guide the way, web visitors either skim the first line (or less) of each paragraph in the F-shaped eye-gazing pattern or hunt around for individual words in the spotted pattern. Both of those are inefficient ways for skimmers to find what they want.

“By far, the single most important thing you can do to help users consume content is to use meaningful [subheads], and make [them] visually pop as compared to body text,” write Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen, the authors of How People Read on the Web.

“The reader who sees the big parts is more likely to remember the whole story.”

— Roy Peter Clark, The Poynter Institute

Why subheads?

And no wonder. In addition to changing visitors’ eye-gazing patterns, good subheads can help you:

1. Draw readers in. A compelling subhead can turn skimmers into readers.
2. Help people find what they want quickly. Web visitors skim web pages, looking at subheads first to find sections of copy they’re looking for, before reading the paragraphs below.
3. Break copy up. Good subheads break copy up into accessible, bite-sized chunks. And when your message looks easier to read, more people will read it.
4. Keep readers reading. “Subheads increased reading for skimmers and for those whose attention was beginning to wane,” according to The Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack III study.
5. Communicate to nonreaders. Well-written subheads can convey your key ideas to flippers, skimmers and others who won’t read your paragraphs, no matter what.
6. Keep readers on your page. If they can’t find what they’re looking for on your page, they’re likely to go back to Google to find a page that gives them what they want.
7. Help visitors read and understand. Subheads “make it vastly easier for users to read and understand web pages,” Pernice, et al., say.
8. Make your message more memorable. “A writer who knows the big parts can name them for the reader” with subheads, writes Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at The Poynter Institute. “The reader who sees the big parts is more likely to remember the whole story.”

Five more reasons for subheads

Indeed, any story of any significant length should have subheads, says Roy Peter Clark. Clark, The Poynter Institute’s editorial guru, says those subheads can:

1. Create an index for the story
2. Offer a distinctive point of entry into the piece
3. Ventilate the gray page with white space
4. Let the writer test the coherence of the piece
5. Give the reader the global structure of the piece at a glance

This is a job for the writer, not the designer, Clark says. The writer should produce or at least suggest the subheads.

Don’t drop the subheads.

Whatever you do, don’t drop online subheads.

“If you are not calling out sections of your web pages or prose on those pages with subheads, you are making a big mistake!” write Pernice et al. “If you take nothing else [away], please take this: Use subheads and subsubheads.”
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Source: Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen; How People Read on the Web: The Eyetracking Evidence; Nielsen Norman Group; Sept. 10, 2013

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Subheads tell readers what content exists on a page and how different sections relate to the others. That guides readers to the copy they want to read and shows them how the parts fit together.

To make the most of your subheads’ ability to guide and instruct readers, make sure you:

1. Give equal emphasis to items of equal importance.

Give all “level one” headlines the same type treatment, and treat all “level two” subheads the same. That way, readers can determine the topic’s weight and hierarchy at a glance.

2. Contrast subheads from text, other display copy.

Make sure readers can’t mistake subheads for body copy, callouts or decks. To make the contrast clear, you might use:

• Font
• Type style
• Type size
• Color
• Alignment
• Graphic accents

3. Save the widows and orphans.

Don’t end a column or page with a subhead. Instead, make sure there are at least three lines of body copy before a column or page break.

4. Keep them short.

Don’t take the “micro” out of the microcontent: Limit subheads to one line. Longer, and they’ll start looking like text, not display copy. Then you’ll lose the attention-grabbing power of subheads.

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The other day, I found a blog post of interest to me: “Maximizing student productivity: Tips for successful internship programs.”

My intern was scheduled to arrive in three minutes, so I quickly skimmed the story. I read the subheads: “Tip No. 1,” they said. “Tip No. 2. Tip No. 3.”

What were the tips? I’ll never know. Because the writer didn’t make the most of the powerful tools that are subheads.

Subheads have magical properties.

What if I told you there was a magic wand that kept readers reading and skimmers scanning — even after their attention begins to wane?

Friends, there is such a tool, and it’s called a subhead.

“Write subheads that reveal, rather than conceal, your contents.”

— Ann Wylie, writing coach, Wylie Communications

Great subheadings are mini headlines that grab reader attention and help skimmers get the gist of the message.

But label subheads — those that classify the topic but don’t say anything about it — don’t communicate much at all.

So instead of just labeling a section of your copy with the topic — “Mortgage services,” for instance, or “Tip. No. 1” — tell the reader something.

What about mortgage services? What is Tip No. 1?

To get the word out via subheads:

1. Make thinking visual.

Think of your subheads as the Roman numeral outline of your piece. What are your topics I, II and III? Those are your subheads.

So organize your message into a series of sections and subsections. Label the sections with subheads (“Make thinking visual,” in this story, for instance), the subsections with bullets or bold-faced lead-ins (“Acknowledge the event,” on this page).

When one of my clients wanted to lend support after some of its employees endured a fire, subheads included:

• Acknowledge the event.
• Listen. Don’t ask questions or seek details.
• Offer long-term emotional support.
• Offer practical support.
• Watch for reactions.

Any questions?

Write subheads that reveal, rather than conceal, your contents.

2. Don’t write ‘read below’ subheads.

If your subheads say “Problem,” “Solution” and “Result,” you’re telling readers, “read below to find out what the problem, solution and results are.”

But they’re not reading. They’re skimming!

Instead of trying to force skimmers to read, write robust subheads that define the problem, solution and results. Concisely describe the content within each section in a subhead. Use simple, understandable words. Test: Could your grandma understand it?

3. Answer, don’t just ask, questions.

If you raise a question in the subhead, answer it in display copy — a bold-faced lead-in, highlighted key words or a bulleted list, maybe.

If your subhead asks, “Why subheads?” for instance, you might answer the question in a list with bold-faced lead-ins:

• Keep readers reading.
• Communicate to nonreaders.
• Draw readers in.
• Break copy up.
• Make messages memorable.

Otherwise, your question is essentially saying “read below to find out.” And we know skimmers want to skim, not read.

Bottom line: If you ask a question in the display copy, you need to answer the question in the display copy.

4. Set up the next section.

Don’t summarize what you’ve already covered, but preview the best of what is to come.

5. Don’t repeat other microcontent.

Avoid using the same words and phrases you’re using in headlines, captions and callouts. Your subheadings help you get the word out to flippers and skimmers. This is San Francisco real estate: Don’t say the same thing twice.

6. Make them compelling.

Write compelling subheads. Choose your words carefully. Craft subheads using intriguing phrases, interesting words.

7. Use subheads frequently.

Use at least one on a short (10- to 12-paragraph) story, recommend the folks at the BBC News Academy. Longer story? Include a subhead every four to six paragraphs.

Note that you’ll have a subhead for each topic in the body of your story, plus one subhead to separate the body from the conclusion (for this story: Don’t drop the subheads.) So if you have three topics, you’ll have four subheads.

8. Keep them short.

Limit subheads to one line — on your phone. (Tip: Email your message to yourself and check it on your mobile to make sure.) That probably means up to five words.

Longer, and they’ll start looking like text, not display copy. And then you’ll lose the attention-grabbing power of subheads.

9. Grab the eye.

“Subheads only get looked at if they actually look like subheads,” write Pernice, et al. “If the sections and their subheads are not different enough, then people will not be able to use them as the lighthouses they are meant to be.”

So once you’ve written subheads, make them eye-catching with larger text, bold-faced type, color, more white space. Make sure there’s plenty of contrast between the text and background, and avoid putting an image behind the text.

But don’t make them distracting.

It’s the Goldilocks rule: Use just enough to set them apart from plain text. Use too much formatting, and they’ll distract skimmers from the rest of the page. Use too little formatting, and skimmers won’t look at them.

Don’t drop the subheads.

Online, writing subheads “may be the most important thing you do” to get readers to read and help skimmers skim. So don’t drop the subheads.

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Sources: “Writing for mobile: Bite-size basics,” BBC Academy, Dec. 2, 2014

Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen; How People Read on the Web: The Eyetracking Evidence; Nielsen Norman Group; Sept. 10, 2013

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