Headings and formatting
Why pay attention to headings?
In all but the shortest pieces of non-fiction writing, you’re probably going to want to break your work down into sections and give each a heading. As we’ve already discussed, one of your main objectives in effective Web copy is to make your page scan-able. Most visitors are likely looking for just a nugget of information, not a full read. Your headings help point out, or at least narrow down, where the nugget your visitor is searching for might be.
The key thing to always keep in mind: most of us have minimal patience and are making quite abrupt decisions about where to click next. Headings direct visitors like road signs: they’re chugging fast down the page looking for either an answer to their question, or the next jumping off point. Poor headings will loose visitors: they’ll give up and go back to google.
The content of a page should be easily summarised by its headings, which concisely describe all the topics you’re going to cover. I would suggest being very descriptive of what’s in subsequent paragraphs, and stay jargon free unless it’s a piece aimed almost exclusively at a specialist audience.
For example, consider this Wikipedia article on Avengers: Endgame (2019). It doesn’t presume that I’m going to read the whole piece, breaking the subject down into summary topics about the movie. There’s a notional “journey” to the article, but it doesn’t presume I need to read it in any particular order. It has sections on the plot, the cast, the film’s critical reception, and its box office returns. It allows me to pursue my own query.
Capitals in headings
There are several common conventions about capitals in headings. There isn’t a definitive or right choice: the important thing is to be consistent.
You’ll notice that, in my site, I treat headings like normal sentences, and capitalise in the same way. One can choose to Capitalise Every First Letter, or Every First Letter but not Small Words. (If you’re not sure about which are the “small” words, here’s an article on the parts of speech to summarise.)
Don’t manually format your own headings
This is a counterintuitive and confusing topic for most casual writers of Web copy. Sidestepping the discussion of why, let’s focus on what you need to do. In the end, following these directions will give you the best results: your headings will look (almost magically!) consistent across your site, and it will give search engines like Google the best direction on what your site is all about.
Humans know a heading when we see one because we understand visual cues: a bigger font size and heavier font weight, for example. However, those cues aren’t easily decipherable by important visitors like a Googlebot — the software tool that “reads” a webpage in order to get it.
Some code does need to be there, behind the scenes, and we’re going to add it. A couple of simple steps means you get the best possible result without having to type any code yourself
Put simply:
- Don’t manually make your font-size bigger.
- Don’t manually make your heading bolder (and italic).
- In fact, just don’t add any custom formatting.
- Do use the Styles tool in your word processor app (e.g. Microsoft Word, Google Docs).
How to automatically format headings
Highlight the line that is going to be your heading, and just select the order of heading required by your article (“Heading 1”, “Heading 2”, etc) from the list. That’s it!
It probably won’t look like it does in your published webpage: don’t concern yourself about that, and don’t be tempted to change or beef up the formatting. If you’ve assigned the right heading style, rest assured, the magic will happen.
Copy-pasting
Copy-pasting from a word processor app can create problems, so I’ve written a step-by-step guide for users of the WordPress Divi theme.