Headings and subheadings

According to The Nielsen Norman Group, 79% of people who use the internet scan a page before they read it. You know what doesn't scan well? Pages that look like novels.

Masses of text, little white space, nothing to tell you what something is about or what can be gained from reading it—these are the scenarios we're trying to avoid in our writing.

Headings and subheadings organize content for users. For that reason, they're our friends. Please use them liberally but thoughtfully. Here are some pointers.

• Headings (H1) give readers a taste of what to expect. Make sure your heading clearly and concisely conveys your content or subject matter and is meaningful to your audience. It's important to note that a page should only ever one H1 heading.

  • 9 tips for making your online store more accessible

• Subheadings (H2, H3, etc.) break articles into smaller, more specific sections. They give readers avenues into your content and make it more scannable.

  • Use alt text

  • Avoid busy animations

  • Choose accessible fonts

• Use sentence case (which means to capitalize only the first letter and proper nouns) for both headings and subheadings.

• Try to keep headings and subheadings to 60-70 characters. If you're writing a blog post, the Yoast SEO plugin will tell you if your title is too long.

• Use parallel structure in subheadings. This means word or phrase patterns that are similar.

  • Run limited-time sales and offers / Display low-stock messaging / Highlight product demand (all lead with verbs)

  • NOT Use limited-time sales and offers to drive sales / Low-stock messaging / Product demand FTW (mismatched approach)

  • Other ways of creating consistency include using "-ing" words (Using, Choosing, Getting) or the question format (How do I? Why should I?)

• Be mindful of using cliches, puns and off-topic turns of phrase. Humour should never come at the expense of telling users (and search engines) what the article or section is about.

• Avoid empty headings like Going further, Next steps, Additional considerations, etc.

A quick reminder about copy and paste...

A lot of the time when we're writing content, we aren't typing it directly into the text editor of whatever platform we're going to use to publish it. We draft it in Pages or a Google Doc and then we copy and paste it into Drip or WordPress or Instagram.

This can cause problems. When you hit "Paste," you're pasting not only your words but a whole slew of formatting that may or may not be recognized by the platform.

Fortunately, it's an easy problem to fix. Rather than using "Paste," select "Paste and Match Style" (usually found in the "Edit" menu of most programs). This way, you'll get all your words and none of the funky formatting. You can then manually add your subheadings, links, captions, etc. in the text editor.

Here's how to set "Paste and Match Style" as your Mac's default.