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Ignore this and nobody will ever read your Medium article

There’s a whole lot of writing and content creation principles I had to learn to get to 90K+ followers on Medium.

But one of the most powerful was this:

Many readers are not actually going to read your article — not in the way you think.

Many people online are skimmers. They scroll and glance and decide within seconds whether your article is worth their time — especially if you didn’t write an eye-catching intro.

If you want readers to stick then you need to make your article as scannable as possible. Otherwise they will leave and tank your read ratio.

Which drastically reduces your chances of ever going viral.

I should easily get what your article even if I’m just skimming through quickly.

Subheadings will do this for you.

It's a key reason why listicles have always been one of the best performing article formats.

1. Subheadings make your article digestible

Without subheadings you end with large unreadable walls of text — especially if you don’t use other techniques to structure them properly.

And this only turns potential readers away.

Subheadings break up your content into manageable chunks to make things much easier to scan and read.

2. Subheadings keep your readers hooked

When a reader lands on your article, you don’t just want them to start reading—you want them to keep reading.

A strong subheading creates a mini-hook. It sparks curiosity about what’s next. It signals a new value drop and promises a takeaway.

This is especially powerful if you format your article like a journey, guiding the reader step-by-step. With each subheading, they know there’s more gold to uncover.

That momentum keeps them scrolling, and ultimately more likely to finish your piece — and share it.

3. Subheadings help you write better

Because now you can’t just write about whatever comes to mind at any point in the article.

You can structure your thoughts and distill them into subheadings.