How to Write Subheadings: Emotion First, Claims Down

A buyer who reads only your subheads reads 1 percent of your page

A buyer opens your sales page. She reads the headline. Then her eyes slide down the subheads, one after another, all the way to the price.

She never reads a paragraph. She reaches the order button, shrugs and leaves.

She did not reject your argument. She never saw it.

Most advice on how to write subheadings says to make each one sum up its section, so a scanner gets the gist. On a sales page, that advice lets the scanner skip your whole argument.

We fix it with one edit, the Subhead Pass. Emotion first: every subhead carries a feeling or a question that its paragraph must answer. Claims down: your biggest claim gets smaller and truer, so the people you pulled in believe it.

Why summary subheads let scanners skip the sale

Most visitors scan. In a classic Nielsen Norman Group study, 79 percent of test users always scanned a new page. Only 16 percent read word by word.

So for most buyers, the subheads are the whole page. A crosshead is a subhead inside a long piece of sales copy.

Now do the math on a long sales letter. Say it runs 10,000 words. Add up every word in its subheads and you might reach 100.

That is 1 percent of the argument. A buyer who reads only the subheads decides on 1 percent. Would you sign a lease after reading 1 percent of it?

Summary subheads are built for exactly that buyer. Each one says what its section holds, so nobody has to open it.

A theme-park fast pass lets you skip the line. That is great on a ride. A summary subhead is a fast pass that lets buyers skip your argument.

Even the researchers behind the F-shaped reading pattern call that kind of skimming bad for users and for businesses. A summary subhead gives away the ending, so nobody reads the rest.

Write each subhead so it only makes sense after the paragraph

Write each subhead so a scanner cannot understand it alone. She stops, wonders what it means, and drops into the paragraph to find out.

Here is the difference. A giveaway subhead says what the section hands over: "That is why we built this checklist for you." Nothing is left to find out.

A pull subhead points at something she has not read yet: "And that is what we want to hand you." Hand you what? She has to read to know.

Three kinds of pull work well. The first is an unnamed thing, like the "that" above. The second is a reason still to come, like "So why are we telling you this?"

The third is a feeling, like "Here is the part that bothers us most." What bothers them? She goes back into the copy to find out.

Each one opens a small question. The paragraph under it must answer that question, and fast.

For example, one sales video and long letter written this way converted at about 6 percent. Its writer says it worked because buyers read the whole argument before the offer. We have not seen the data.

The goal is not a clever subhead. The goal is a buyer who reads 9,000 of your 10,000 words.

And short copy is not the cure. Copy is rarely too long. It is usually too boring.

Put the feeling in the subhead, not the facts

Emotion first means the subhead makes the reader feel something before it tells her anything. It might be worry, curiosity, relief, or a small itch to know more.

Facts in a subhead answer the question. Feeling keeps it open.

Why does this matter so much? Because a reader who stops reading starts thinking about other things. She remembers the laundry.

She does not come back.

Feeling comes from true detail, not from adjectives. For example, one page for retirees asked how many cups of tea they get from one tea bag. Many retirees reuse tea bags, so readers nodded before the next line.

Before each subhead, ask one question. What would this reader need to hear from us to believe the next part? It is not about what we want to tell her.

Then write the subhead that makes her want that answer. How words turn into pictures and feelings is in desire is a gap.

One loaded word can sour a whole section. "Sorry" from an expert sounds like guilt, and "share" feels warmer than "show". More in what not to say in copy.

When should a subhead just be a label?

Use a plain label when the reader came to find a fact. Use a pull subhead when the reader must follow an argument to decide.

Public writing guides say the opposite, and they are right for their kind of page. Nielsen Norman Group asks for meaningful subheads, not clever ones. Its advice on headlines says a heading must make sense when it stands alone.

That fits help pages, pricing tables, menus and search results. A person hunting for a refund policy wants "Refunds", not a riddle.

A sales letter is different. Nobody lands on it to look up a fact. They land on it to decide, and the decision needs the argument.

This guide uses plain takeaway headings on purpose. You came to learn a method, and you may want to jump to a step.

Our rule: use labels when people look things up, and pull subheads when you need to persuade.

Is a pull subhead just clickbait?

It is clickbait only when the paragraph fails to pay it off. Clickbait is a headline built to get a click, often by promising more than the page delivers.

A loop is a question the reader wants answered. A pull subhead opens one, and the next few lines close it.

The common failure is the dropped loop. A page's opening mentions a team of prize-winning scientists, and they never appear again.

The reader notices. Then she stops trusting every other subhead.

How to lose a scanner in four easy steps:

1. Sum up every section in its subhead, so nobody needs to read it.

2. Promise a secret. Deliver advice from a fridge magnet.

3. Mention the prize-winning scientists once. Never again.

4. Write "I know this sounds too good to be true" and hope like hell.

Every loop you open is a small debt. Pay it back in the same section.

Turn your biggest claim down, not up

Claims down means smaller claims, not claims moved lower on the page. A smaller true number often earns more belief than a huge one.

For example, one copy coach did about 3,500 copy reviews in a year, but on stage she gave a smaller, exact count: 968. A precise 968 sounds counted. A big 3,500 sounds like a boast.

The smaller number must still be true. Saying less than you could is called understatement. It works because the reader can tell you held back.

Buyers also judge a number against one they already know. Psychologists call this anchoring.

For example, one fund's buyers compared every result with big funds earning about 13 to 15 percent a year. The fund could show trades that returned 1,000 percent. Those charts would have scared its buyers off as too risky.

So the page showed results of 15 to 20 percent, close to the number buyers trusted. Money and health claims carry extra legal rules. A smaller claim is not automatically a legal one.

Public research agrees. In the same Nielsen Norman Group study, plain, objective wording scored 27 percent better on usability than boastful marketing copy. Users trusted a site less when they could see it exaggerate.

One more rule: never write "this sounds unbelievable." The reader was not thinking it. Now she is.

If a claim seems to need that line, go back up the page. Find why it sounds hard to believe, and fix it there with detail or proof. The FTC expects ad claims to be truthful and backed by evidence anyway.

How to stack that proof is in the proof stack. The rules on claims that get sellers in trouble are in the FTC risk drivers.

Keep the feeling honest, and lift the reader before the price

Emotion first does not mean pain first. Point a painful line at the group, not at the reader.

Compare two lines. "You are hiding from your own books." "Many owners at this stage avoid their books for months."

The second line lets her decide if she is one of them. The first one starts a fight.

Go easy on shame. A reader who feels judged gets defensive, then leaves.

Mood can rise and fall across the page. But it must climb before the offer.

Make her feel so good that she needs nothing, and she will not buy. Make her feel hopeless, and she will not buy either.

Aim for the middle, and end the section before the price on hope. If you interrupt someone's day, you owe them a way out of the problem.

The doubts she will not say out loud need answers too. That method is in assumptive questions.

Run the Subhead Pass in seven steps

The Subhead Pass is one edit of a long sales page. It covers the subheads, the biggest claim and the mood before the price.

1. Write the offer down first. Every subhead points toward it, so the page never wanders off.

2. Copy every subhead into a list. Read the list alone, top to bottom.

3. Mark every giveaway. Any subhead you understand without its paragraph is a giveaway.

4. Rewrite each giveaway as a pull. Use an unnamed thing, a reason still to come, or a feeling.

5. Check that every loop closes. Answer each subhead in its own section, or cut it.

6. Turn the biggest claim down. Use a smaller true number, or set it beside a figure the buyer trusts, and delete any "sounds unbelievable" line.

7. Lift the section before the price. End it on hope, not on the problem.

Video scripts get the same pass. The on-screen titles in a video sales letter are subheads too.

Run the Subhead Pass with AI

Paste the prompt below into your preferred AI. It asks for your offer, your reader, your subheads and your biggest claim. Then it rewrites the subheads and turns the claim down.

It never invents a number. When it needs one, it asks you.

Long ads get scanned the same way. See why long ads still convert.

Do this on one page this week

1. Pick your longest sales page. Copy its subheads into a list.

2. Run the prompt. Rewrite every giveaway and one claim.

3. Read the new list alone. If it makes you want to read the paragraphs, ship it.

Remember the buyer who slid down your subheads to the price? Next time, each subhead stops her and sends her into the paragraph.

Want a second pair of eyes? Send us the page.

A good subhead opens the door. It never gives the tour.