Day 3 – Wednesday: How to entice readers with your subheads

Good subheads tempt scanners to start reading, and they keep readers motivated to keep reading. A good subhead arouses curiosity or promises a benefit.

Today we analyse subheads – either your own or subheads from someone else. If you have time, do both. Analyse subheads both from a popular blog and from your own blog.

An example of subhead evaluation

Below follow all subheads of the post, I reverse-outlined yesterday (The Sin of Originality):

1. Originality gone wrong – arouses curiosity (why would originality go wrong?)
2. The myth of creativity – arouses curiosity (what’s wrong with creativity?)
3. Pablo Picasso was a master thief (oh really? more curiosity)
4. How to steal your way to blogging success (a promise to teach the reader how to become a successful blogger)
5. A swipe file is the secret to blogging success (secret arouses some curiosity but the secret is already given away by saying it’s a swipe file)
6. How to steal and write awesome blog posts (promise to teach the reader how to write)
7. The truth about building a popular blog (a promise of the truth)

When you read the subheads after each other, you notice that #4, #5, #6 and #7 are all quite similar. This isn’t great because a reader may think I’ve read this already. Clearly I didn’t check my subheads before this post was published. Must do better next time 🙂

Your action points for today:

Select one or two blog posts (either from yourself or from a popular blog you admire)
Write down the subheads on a sheet of paper
Decide whether each subhead arouses curiosity or promises a benefit
Post the subheads and your findings in the forum

Enchant readers. Woo customers. Win business.