132: How to Give Your Blog Posts Structure By Using Subheadings

How to Use Subheadings to Add Structure to Your Blog Posts Today we are talking about written content. I have one of our regular contributors Ali Luke, from Aliventures.com on the show today to talk about subheadings. I haven’t talked much about using subheadings, but as I was listening to Ali it struck me that it is one of the most important techniques we can use when writing content today. Listen to this podcast in the player above or here on iTunes. Some of the Subheading Related Topics Ali Covers Today Include: Reasons to use them Why people don’t use them Should you use the on every post Tips on how to use them 2 good examples of posts with subheadings (one simple and one more complex) Technical tips for using them I’m turning the show over to Ali and giving her 10 minutes to share as much good advice as she can. I think it would be well worth your while to listen to what she has to say. In Today’s Episode Ali’s Tips on How to Give Your Blog Posts Structure By Using Subheadings Subheadings stand out because they are like mini titles. They make your post stand out and make it more readable. Subheading Not Formatted: Subheading Formatted: Benefits of subheadings: Break up the text on the screen, making it more attractive at a glance – long blocks of dark grey text aren’t very attractive to look at Add extra white space – so that’s the blank space above, below, around the subheading – to make for easier reading Act as “signposts” in the text, so that readers who are skimming through can easily stop at relevant points – would be lovely if everyone read every word but they don’t! Come out of your planning, which makes it easy to write the post Give the post a strong structure, so it’s easy for readers to follow – they don’t get lost or confused in the middle, so they’re more likely to keep reading So why don’t some bloggers use them? They forget! They don’t plan in advance of writing Do all posts need subheadings? No – a very short post probably doesn’t. I’d suggest using at least one subheading in any post over 500 words long, though. Think of subheadings as the key points in your plan. If you write a plan for your post and you’ve got four key points, you’ll likely need four subheadings. Basic structure with subheadings: Classic list post, with a subheading for each of the 7 Ideas. Each starts with a number too – ALWAYS DO THIS IN A NUMBERED LIST POST. I imagine that when Charles sat down to think about this post, he came up with a working title, then drafted a list of ideas – maybe the 7 in the finished post, or maybe he came up with a couple of extras then cut the weaker ones. He might have played around with the ordering of ideas. Then each of the ideas became a subheading. More complicated structure: The 4 Rs That Show a Brand Your Blog is Influential Again this is a list post with the 4 Rs: Reach Resonance Reaction Relevance But also has an extra section at the end of each of these four parts, with its own sub-subheading – “Reach Metrics”, “Resonance Metrics” and so on. The fourth R, Relevance, is a long section so has two of these sub-subheadings. This is really handy technique when writing a list post, especially if you want to go more in-depth than typical list post. You can add an extra section to every item – try to make it consistent. This should offer something extra, added value to the reader. Laney used “Metrics” here, but you could try: Further Reading Recommended Tools Top Tip Watch Out for Try This Techy bits about subheadings: Header 2 for subheadings. Header 3 for sub-subheadings. Techy tip: if you write posts in MS Word, “Heading 2” style corresponds to the “Header 2” – you can copy and paste your post from Word into WordPress and your subheadings and sub-subheadings remain intact! In wordpress, click on the subheading.