There is too much importance of headings in HTML. You can use headings before paragraph, not only in paragraph even in any place of web page. Normally you can see headings before any paragraph of Article. There are six types of headings in html you can define from <h1> to <h6>.
Example
<h1>Heading One</h1>
<h2>Heading Two</h2>
<h3>Heading Three</h3>
<h4>Heading Four</h4>
<h5>Heading Five</h5>
<h6>Heading Six</h6>
