The Bold and the Beautiful

In my view, bold text is an under-used tool on the web writer's toolbox. I'm not sure why it isn't used more. Perhaps it's aesthetics?

Many of the websites I test could be dramatically improved with some well chosen emboldening.

Even when a page has a massive wall of text for the user to climb, emboldening a few key words can act as the rope to help them over it.

My favourite example comes from Business Link. The page explains the advantages and disadvantages of buying a franchise. It's very well written but the use of bold text allows you to pick up the main points quickly.

If you want your web writers to use bold text more often, then your design could do a couple of things to encourage it.

1. Hyperlinks should look clearly different to normal bold text. This could be by using a clearly different colour. If your hyperlink colour looks similar to bold text then underline your hyperlinks.
2. Sub-headings should be bigger than normal text. The impact of both paragraph headings and bold text are reduced when they both look the same.
   

If bold text clashes with hyperlinks or headings then content writers are less-inlcined to use them.