3 Types Of Subheadings for Public Speaking Content Articles (Number 3 Is A Goodie)

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Subheadings are more important than you think.

Generally, this is where the reader’s eyes go when they land on your content piece:

• image
• headline
• subheadings
• and then they decide whether they want to read everything else.

So you see, before readers even make their way to your first paragraph, let alone the first sentence, they do a scan of the whole thing to get the ‘gist’ of the article.

And because of that, it’s important to get those first impression elements down solid.

I’ve talked about headlines here and here.

So for today, we’re going to look at subheadings. Specifically, 3 types of subheadings that will make your writing so magnetizing that audiences can’t help but read the whole article.

Let’s go! 👇

The “question” subheading

The question subheading calls out the next natural question the reader has.

The great thing about this type of subheading is it signals to the reader ‘You’re in the right place, here are all the questions we’re going to answer’ and reinforces the likelihood they will read.

When you get really good at this, audiences start to feel like you’re reading their mind that it’s almost spooky (spooky good ofc).

Here are 3 examples of question subheadings:

• What are the benefits of learning public speaking?
• When do you use public speaking in your life?
• What are the common mistakes beginner public speakers make?

And here’s how it would look visually on a page:

Question subheading with lorem ipsum filler text. Question subheadings call out the immediate queries readers have and let them know they’re in the right place — increasing the likelihood they read your article.

Awesome — one down, two to go!

Let’s check out the next one…

The “answer” subheading

Where the question subheading calls out questions, the answer subheading calls out answers.

Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this type of subheading is it’s skimmable, giving readers enough to have the answer, but not enough to fully understand it. Why? Because the reader lacks the context to make sense of the answer.

And so how do they resolve that?

By reading through your article. 😉

Here are 3 examples of answer subheadings:

• Don’t forget to drink water
• Warm up your vocals before you present
• Don’t look at the ‘crowd’. Instead look at individual people

And here’s how it would look visually on a page:

Answer subheading with lorem ipsum filler text. Answer subheadings call out the immediate answers but since readers lack the context to make sense of these answers, they must read the details to get the full picture.

And last but not least…

The “mid-sentence” subheading

The mid-sentence subheading is when you call out an incomplete and open sentence.

I really enjoy using these, because it gets readers really itching to close the mental loop and complete the sentence ( it also works on me every time like a charm).

Here are 3 examples of mid-sentence subheadings:

• And then that’s when I realized…
• Then after hundreds of hours, I created a powerful framework…
• It was my little secret for 6+ years. Then I thought…

And here’s how it would look visually on a page:

Mid-sentence subheadings with lorem ipsum filler text. Mid-sentence subheadings create an open loop in the reader’s mind and to close it, they are forced to read the details of the article to find out the whole story.

Notice how because the subheadings end mid-sentence, we’re compelled to read on to find out how it ends. Think of it like a cliffhanger but for articles. You create these little cliffhangers throughout, and before the reader knows it, they’re at the end of the article.

Alright, congratulations!

You have just added 3 types of subheadings to your public speaking content toolkit 🥳

Now start using them!