Web copywriting 101: Sub-headings

I went to read The Skills Gap Myth on Time.com this morning, and I saw this:

Whoa. That's a lot of text.

I know I?m off Diet Coke, and low on caffeine, and my brain?s working in slow motion. But still, that?s an awful lot of uninterrupted text for a Monday morning. When you?re writing online, you need to break up the page. A solid, endless scroll of text will make even the most determined reader hesitate.

Couldn?t the web editors at Time do something like this?

That's better, yes?

The problem with reading online

Reading text on a screen makes comprehension and retention harder. iPads and other tablets are changing this for e-book text, where there?s a finite screen length and near-instant load times. They?re not changing this for web pages, where the page can stretch and people hate waiting for a new page to load.

So, you need to provide breaks: A time for the reader?s brain to rest. Sub-headings are the easiest way to do it.

Sub-heads: The rest between intervals

In cycling, I train using intervals: A hard effort, followed by a rest, followed by a hard effort. That lets me do more, in less time, and not have my heart pop like a grape in a microwave.

By inserting a few sub-heads at logical points in the article, you can take the whole article from this:

To this:

Not a magic solution

Adding sub-headings is easy and fast. It provides the reader a quick road map, and splits the page into shorter reading efforts. That?s all good.

You can do even better, though, with smarter typography?take a look at Pearsonified?s Golden Ratio Type Calculator? and intelligent use of images.

Some evidence

Sorry, I don?t have the perfect study proving all this. It?s mostly common sense:

• Reading from a monitor is hard.
• On web pages, people scan first, then read.
• This is completely different from e-books read on tablet computers, so studies showing folks are fine reading War & Peace on their iPad don?t apply.

I do have a good anecdote, though: We gave one client suggestions for revamping their blog posts. They added more sub-headings, dispersed imagery throughout those posts, and made some small typography changes. Time on page went up 50%. Bounce rate from blog posts fell 15%.

It?s not that hard

It took me about 3 minutes to add 5 relevant sub-headings to the Time Business article. If that can cut bounce rates by even 1-2%, I?ll bet it?ll pay off in higher ad impressions and revenue for Time Business.

Give it a shot. If you?re comfortable sharing, send me your data. I?ll pull it all together.

If you want to compare versions of the article, here?s the original. And here?s my version, with sub-heads.

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