TIP 4 - Use subheadings to stop scrollers

If you're a member here at Wealthy Affiliate, you'll have no doubt read or heard Kyle talk about making your pages and posts more readable by adding sub headings. As he says, these break up the text and make them look a lot less 'blocky', and as a result more inspiring to read. But it also helps engage the people who visit your sales pages or reviews, and who then immediately start scrolling to see if anything stands out that may be of interest. I'll admit, I am one of those people, and I'm by no means alone.

Sub headings simply act as mini headlines that reassure the reader that what is about to follow is important and should be read. So, going back to what we covered in tip 1's titles lesson, we need to set up a promise in our sub headings that entices the reader to read or continue reading.

The perfect title or sub heading

I find a good way to come up with a good, enticing title or sub heading is to simply ask yourself "Why should anybody read the text after the title?". How you answer this will determine how it will translate into the compelling title or sub heading that precedes it.

Unconvinced? Well try this little test. Go back to a book, magazine article, web page or blog post that you really enjoyed and just had to keep reading to the end. Then see how the author kept you engaged with compelling titles and sub headings.

Stop the page scanners!

If, like me, you're a page scroller and scanner, you'll know how easy it is for a reader to click through to a page, and then just scroll through scanning for the most relevant information.

If written well, a sub heading can stop scanners like me in our tracks and trigger an unstoppable urge to read content that is perceived to be too good to miss. Or "if I don't read this, I'll be missing out on something important".

So always ask yourself before publishing your page, does it have sub headings that are unmissable to us page scanners and scrollers. Will they make us want to stop and read them so we don't miss out on what needs to be read, if we're going to make the purchase. As an example, think about headlines such as:

"If you read nothing else..." or
"All you need to know about X in just 30 seconds" or
"How 'X product' helped Mrs L in the UK".