You have likely put in a lot of effort to optimize your Notion website for SEO and attract organic traffic to your long-form blog post.
However, visitors may be overwhelmed when they land on your page and see a large block of text in the first fold. They may even leave if they cannot easily find the content they are looking for. That’s a bad place to be, but the Notion table of contents block can fix the issue for you.
For long-form content, a table of contents is not just a nice-to-have element - it is a necessity. It helps visitors easily navigate to the sections that are most relevant to them. They need not scroll down the page with squinted eyes while trying to find relevant content, they can simply click on an item in the table of contents and jump right to it.
You can easily add a table of contents block in Notion - structure your content with header tags and then add the block to the top of your page.
Here are four detailed steps to doing that:
1. Organize your content with headers and subheaders
Notion can automatically detect header tags in your blog post and add it as a line item within the block.
To make use of this feature, create a new Notion page and structure your content in a way that is helpful for your readers. Keep in mind that visitors may not read every word of your content - they are primarily interested in the information that addresses their pain points, so you must write headers that clearly state the value-proposition of the section.
For example, your article may contain four important sections, each relevant to the main topic and having some search volume. By structuring your content under individual H2s, you provide users a dedicated section to focus on. Then, by clicking on the header tag in the table of contents, readers can quickly jump to the section they want to read.
Here is an example of what a well-structured blog post looks like.
It has a bunch of H2s that slice the whole long post into easy-to-consume sub-sections.
2. Add the table of contents block
Click where you want to insert the block and type ‘/’. This will pull up the list of all the Notion blocks - scroll down until you find the Table of Contents block.
Click on it to see the table of contents on your page.
Ensure that all items in the table of contents are clickable and take the reader to the relevant sections on the page. Additionally, experiment with the block by adding and removing header tags, you should notice that Notion automatically updates the table of contents.
3. Make the block stand-out
It is important to inform the reader that the collection of links they see are not links to other pages but rather to sections within the same page. The best way to do that is by explicitly stating that the links they see are a table of contents.
You can make this block stand out by utilizing Notion’s design features - You can put it under a toggle block and change the background and text color.
To put it under a toggle block, click right above the first item in the list, type ‘>’, hit the spacebar, and finally, type in Table of Contents. Next, drag and drop the table of contents block under the toggle block.
With this approach, your table of contents will be collapsible. People will know its purpose and click on it to get a quick understanding of what the article entails.
With that, your table of contents is ready!
However, adding a table of contents alone is not enough to provide your blog visitors with the stellar experience they deserve.
You need to use Super to make your content stand out. With Super, you not only get stellar design capabilities but also powerful SEO features, a custom domain name for your blog without the .notion.so extension, custom navbars and footers, and more!
Check out some cool blog templates that Super offers.
FAQs
Can you make a table of contents in Notion?
Yes, you can create a professional-looking table of content in Notion by adding the Table of Contents block at the beginning of your page. Notion automatically updates the table of contents with every header tag you add, edit, or remove.
How to edit the table of contents in Notion?
Simply edit the text of the header tags in your content, and Notion will automatically update the table of contents block for you. You don't have to worry about manually updating the block or adding jump links.
What is a Table of Contents in Notion?
“Table of Contents” is a Notion block that allows you to create an index for your Notion page based on the header tags it contains. This feature automatically pulls phrases of text that are tagged H1-H3, and populates them inside the block section. These phrases act as jumplinks, meaning, if you click on any of them, you jump right to the section of the page where they are mentioned.
This feature is especially helpful if you use Notion for blogging. If your blog is too long, adding a Notion index will help visitors jump to the section that they are interested in. This makes navigation easy, reduces bounce rate, and enables you to retain visitors for longer durations. This gives you more time to engage them and influence their decisions.
Why is your Notion Table of Contents not showing all headings?
At times, your Notion Table of Contents may skip headings if you have moved them around after creating the block. Try rearranging them and see if all the headings show up again. For example, if you are seeing only the H1 text in your document, it could mean that you moved text assigned a lower tag above the H1 text. This violates the general hierarchy in which H2 follows H1, and H3 follows H2. Getting the order right should bring back all the headers inside the table of contents block.
How to add a Notion table of contents in the sidebar?
You can easily add a sticky sidebar to your Notion page with the table of contents in it by using Super’s Aether template. You can also add a sidebar by using Notion columns but that won’t be sticky - you will also have to play with the alignment to make the page look aesthetic.
Not just the table of contents, make the whole page look aesthetic
Design your website with Super
