I watched a man read an entire article on his phone while standing in an airport security line.
He never once stopped scrolling. He wasn’t reading, he was grazing. His eyes bounced from one bold line to the next, scooping up meaning in fragments, building a mental map of the piece without ever committing to a full paragraph.
He probably walked away thinking he’d “read” that article.
And honestly? He kind of had. Because whoever wrote those subheadings had done something quietly brilliant: they’d written for the grazer, not just the reader. And the grazer is your real audience.
The emotional truth about online reading
Nobody wants to admit this, but we’ve all become the airport man. We skim. We bounce. We treat long-form content like a buffet, sampling the headers, skipping the body, and leaving before dessert. It’s not a character flaw. It’s a survival mechanism. The average knowledge worker encounters enough text each day to fill a novel, and nobody has time for a novel before lunch.
So here’s the uncomfortable truth: your readers aren’t failing to appreciate your carefully crafted prose. You’re failing to meet them where they actually live, which is in a state of chronic, almost pathological, skimming.
The subheading is where the rescue happens.
The Subhead Trinity: three jobs that happen simultaneously
A well-crafted subhead isn’t a label. It’s not a filing system for your paragraphs. I want you to think of the subhead as something I call The Subhead Trinity, three distinct jobs that a single line of text must perform at the same time:
- Lure, pull the skimmer into your content
- Sell, convince the committed reader to keep going
- Narrate, tell a complete story to the person who never reads the body
Let’s break each one open.
1. Lure: write subheads that shamelessly promote your own content
The skimmer is asking one question: “Is this worth my attention?” Your subhead needs to answer with an emphatic yes, by promising a specific, tangible benefit.
Instead of:
There are thousands of perennial plants available today
Write:
How to save money and choose the right perennials for your garden plot
Instead of:
Available colors for perennial flowers
Write:
3 tips to easily pick the perfect perennial color scheme
The second versions don’t describe the section, they sell it. There’s a difference, and the skimmer can feel it. (So can your bounce rate.)
2. Sell: make each subhead an ad for the section below it
Once a reader commits, they’re still one click, one notification, one shiny link away from leaving. Every subhead is a fresh handshake. It says, “Stay with me, the best part is coming.”
To pull this off:
- Highlight the benefit of the knowledge in each section
- Use the same craft you bring to headlines, inform and intrigue
- Focus the reader on how they’ll use what follows, not just what it is
Think of each subhead as a tiny sales letter for the paragraph beneath it. Because that’s exactly what it is.
3. Narrate: let your subheads tell a story on their own
Here’s the part most writers skip. After you’ve drafted your piece, go back and read only the subheads. Top to bottom. No body text.
Ask yourself: if this were the only thing someone read, would they walk away thinking your content was valuable?
If the answer is no, rewrite them. The non-readers, the people who skim and share without ever finishing, are some of your most valuable amplifiers. They share based on the architecture of your piece, not the contents. Make the architecture worth sharing.
The earned challenge
Open the last article you published. Strip out everything but the subheadings. Read them in sequence.
Do they tell a story? Do they promise benefits? Would a stranger scrolling through on their phone at 35,000 feet walk away satisfied?
If not, you haven’t finished editing. You’ve just finished drafting. The subheads are where the real writing happens.