and make it much more inviting to readers
Using crossheads when you’re composing your blog post is important for a number of reasons. Here are some of them.
First of all, what is a crosshead?**
Basically, a crosshead is a subheading or secondary headline that encapsulates in a few words what’s to come in the paragraphs of text. Although internet writing wallahs think they’ve invented these devices, they haven’t – those of us who have been writing promotional material in the offline world have been using them for years. (**that is a crosshead!)
Why? Because they help you plan your text, break it up, and give the small print something to hang off. Want an example? Check out the crossheads in this article…
Use crossheads in your first draft to anchor your thinking
Although you may edit and/or change them for the final draft of your business blog post, writing roughly right crossheads before you write anything else will help keep you on the straight and narrow of your topic.
Essentially they pinpoint the key messages that you want to get across, and focus your mind on those … which stops your mind wandering off into tangents which may or not be relevant for this particular section of your blog post.
Use crossheads to help your post flow
Writing crossheads can be a very useful way for you to focus on the overall flow of what you want to share in your blog post.
And by writing out your crossheads before you get into more detail, you’re in effect creating a skeleton of your blog post which forms a solid and relevant structure for the final draft. This is invaluable.
At this stage, too, if you feel your text might not be moving in quite the right direction, it’s one hell of a lot easier to shift content around at the crosshead stage, than it is when you have written out your entire first draft.
So with your final choice of crossheads in place, in the right order, you can then go on to flesh out your key points in detail/
Use crossheads to capture the attention of scanners
It’s well known that people reading pretty much anything online now are very short on time and are likely to scan a blog post that interests them to get the essential gist of what it offers … perhaps reading on if they’re really interested, or if not, at least taking note of the post and who wrote it.
This is where crossheads really can gel: provided that you get the key points of your post across in the crossheads … if relevant with a call to action in there prominently … readers won’t necessarily have to scroll back through the whole thing to get your message.
Make sure that your call to action smacks them straight in the teeth
With the right crossheads culminating in a good call to action, readers will have your story presented to them in a series of sequential bullet points that should get them right where you want them.
What experience do you have with the use of crossheads in your blog posts, and the ultimate call to action? Please share that with us here if you’d like to!
While you’re here, don’t forget to stop by my Bookshop…books and eBooks to help you write better – and to give to friends and family (don’t forget the Holiday Season is coming soon)…
photo credit: Robbert van der Steeg via photopin cc