(Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes)

You’re losing readers… readers you don’t even know about… when you don’t know how to use subtitles effectively.

Crafting a killer subtitle supports your title, and helps draw readers from the title into your text.

Grab a cuppa, pull up a chair, and we’ll spend a few minutes discussing what subtitles are, where you’re going to use them, and how to create them. And how you can use this knowledge to make readers feel compelled to click through.

“What is a subtitle, anyway?”

That’s an excellent question, and I’m going to answer that question right off the top of my head. But first, you write down on a piece of paper what you think a subtitle is.

Go on, do it, write down your definition of a subtitle. I’ll wait.

Here’s my definition: A subtitle is a sentence or two of text immediately following the title, or in some cases, immediately following the byline.

Do our definitions match?

Now let’s what the Free Online Dictionary has to say: 1. A secondary, usually explanatory title, as of a literary work.

Ok, I’m in the ballpark. Let’s combine both.

Subtitle: A secondary, usually explanatory title, immediately following the title, or in some cases, immediately following the byline.

“Why are subtitles important?”

The subtitle is important because it’s the second thing a reader sees, right after your headline or title. Write a benefit-driven, attention-grabbing title, supported by a Reason Why subtitle, readers feel almost compelled to click through and read.

By the way, today is Double 10 Day. 10/10. 十十 (雙十節). Next year, I’ll be in Chinatown for 10/10/10. Would that be 十十十? I don’t know, but it ought to be quite a party!

Subtitles: the second most critical element

If titles are the most critical element of your articles, then surely, subtitles are the next most critical elements. After all, the subtitle is the first thing a reader reads… after reading the title. While it’s worth some time reflecting on subtitles in general, there’s two concrete reasons you need to master subtitles right now:

1. Subtitles can show up in RSS feeds. If you don’t catch ‘em with your killer title, the subtitle gives you another chance to reel them in.
2. Subtitles may be used by default in search engine results, by aggregators, or by other machine-driven, automatic content scrapers. Crafting a killer subtitle can only help.

As usual, there’s no need to take my word for it. I’ll have screenshots demonstrating exactly how subtitles appear in an RSS reader and in Google search results.

Arr Ess Ess – the feed you need

I’m going to assume every reader is familiar with Really Simple Syndication (RSS). If not, there’s a bazillion web pages on the subject, read a half dozen, you’ll know as much as I know. But really, you don’t need to know much more than

An RSS reader (that’s you) subscribes to the RSS feed, then displays the items – blog posts – in the feed using an RSS reader application.

I use Google Reader myself, whence this example is drawn. You can Google “Google Reader” for specific information on… Google Reader.

Fire up your favorite RSS reader now, and take a look at the feeds. Here’s what mine looks like (go ahead and click on the image to see it in full size, it’s important):

Titles and subtitles displayed in Google Reader

See all that text to the left? In the orange box? Labeled “Subtitle?” That’s the good stuff. You want those words to support your title, sucking your reader onto your blog and into your article.

Now, I make no claim that any of the subtitles shown in this screenshot of Website In A Weekend’s RSS feed are any good. But I will guarantee that my subtitles are going to get a lot better! And fast.

While we’re talking about subtitles…

Creating awesome, compelling titles is a first step, and I don’t know any better place to start than reading a definitive reference on the subject.

The serious student of the title will go further and get a copy of (WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! THE FTC REQUIRES ME TO DISCLOSE MY AFFILIATION WITH AMAZON.COM! I MIGHT MAKE MONEY IF YOU PURCHASE THE FOLLOWING BOOK!) First Hundred Million by E Haldeman-Julius. This book was first published in 1929 and contains 10 years of publishing experience on the Little Blue Books. Little Blue Books were 3×5 inch volumes, sold only by mail, and only in lots of 20 at 5 cents each. Customers ordered by placing check marks next to titles on large, broadsheet inserts or pages in their local newspapers. The only difference to the customer… was the book title.

Now let’s take a look at Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and see what our subtitles look like to J. Random Googler who is looking for your stuff.

What’s a SERP and is it contagious?

A SERP is a Search Engine Results Page.

You want your blog posts to appear on the first SERP for every search engine, but most especially Google.

Along with your blog post title, Google will display some (hopefully) descriptive text about the search result. This is where you need to have either a great SEO description, or a killer subtitle.

Check out this screenshot showing a lame description from one of my pages where I didn’t fill in the SEO description at all. Lacking the metadata, Google pulled the first couple of lines from the article:

No SEO description results in first lines of article shown in SERPs

This article did make the top half of page 1 of Google for the search term “Unleash WordPress,” so I got the SEO part of the equation correct. With a better subtitle, I believe I would get more traffic.

Recommendations for creating subtitles

Here’s two:

1. Create a 160 character teaser in your SEO Description field. From what I understand, the character limit isn’t hard-wired in all applications to 160 characters, but it’s a common length and the discipline for length constraint is good to develop.
2. For the actual subtitle, you could use the SEO Description, or you could write a different teaser [more about teasers]. Personally, I like to write a different teaser for the subtitle, and not feel overly constrained by 160 characters. However, note that RSS readers may truncate at less (possibly much less) than 160 characters. Put the good stuff up at the beginning!

For both suggestions, expand on your title, add benefits, reasons why, create surprises, all the usual tools and techniques for titles apply but you have more room to work with.

Do you have a 3rd recommendation? I’d love to hear it, leave a comment!

In fact, if you can add #3 to my list, I’ll personally help you create absolutely killer, rock-solid, eyeball-popping, seductive, compelling subtitles for 3 blog posts of your choosing. I’ll credit you for the suggestion, and dofollow link anywhere you want (offer expires October 31, 2009).