bizbuzzcontent

  • WHAT WE DO
  • WHO WE ARE
    • MEET THE TEAM
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT
You are here:   Home Blog How to Create Article Introductions That Do Their One and Only Job

How to Create Article Introductions That Do Their One and Only Job

February 1, 2019 by Katie Mitchell Leave a Comment

One winter night during my high school junior year, a good friend introduced me to the most hilarious person I’d ever met. He was her new boyfriend, and we were all heading out to a formal school dance.

I tried to mask how excited I was to meet this guy. My friend hadn’t dated before, and I was thrilled for her.

More than that, something about him just got my attention and held it, and having him within our group fit so well.

Of course, now I know why. After my friend went off to college and her relationship with John ended, she encouraged us to date. We did, and have now been married for more than 13 years.

A first meeting has the ability to captivate your attention and be forever ingrained in your memory.

This is not unlike an introduction to an article. If done well, each line draws you further in, and before you know it, you’re halfway through the content.

A good introduction has one job: Get readers to continue reading your article. If you keep reading this one (or click the sections below to find exactly what you need), I’ll give you tips on how to make your introductions do just that.

Tl;DR
Get readers to stick with an article through introductions that deliver on the headline and establish the rest of the piece. How you do that will vary depending on the type of content (e.g. journalism vs. an opinion piece).

Make introductions work with attention-getting openers (stats, stories, etc.) that connect well to the content’s point. Remember that introductions might impact certain metrics.

  1. What Introductions Do
  2. How to Make Introductions Work
  3. How Introductions Can Impact Your Webpage Performance

What Introductions Do

Introductions must do two things to turn clicks into engagement:

1. Deliver on the Headline

It’s great if your headlines get lots of clicks, but if nothing of substance happens after that, the time you spend crafting great titles could be for naught.

Think about those ads you see at the bottom of articles at popular publications that entice you to click. While so much thought has gone into that headline, almost always, you land on a lackluster piece of content.

My recent post about writing successful headlines emphasized the importance of not only “clickability” but also titles delivering on what they promise.

You start delivering on that headline immediately in the introduction of your content. It’s where you set the stage by telling an intriguing story, explaining what you’ll cover, why readers will benefit and so on.

Essentially, you have to transport readers from their real world into the world of your content.

While there’s no one formula or template for an introduction, it must pull readers in …

2. Establish the Intent of Rest of the Article

Imagine you’re going to begin a conversation with a stranger or someone you barely know. You want to come off as friendly and interesting, but not too strong or with loads of personal information.

Think of your content’s introductions like that. Adopt a level of personability and the promise of more to come, but don’t start throwing overly detailed information at readers right away. They might feel overwhelmed before even getting started. In short: Be concise.

Introductions differ depending on the type of content they introduce.

  • In journalism, an introduction must address who, where, what, why, when and how (5Ws and the H) quickly in order to move to the meat of the piece.
  • Story-driven pieces might begin with entertaining snapshots of a specific event or a highly relatable situation most readers can understand.

Without stating it directly, each intro type lets readers know whether they’re about to read an update of facts and projections or a commentary on culture and deeper meaning.

Even though the introduction comes first, don’t feel as though you have to write it first. In fact, my introductions usually happen when the rest of the content is fully outlined and mostly written.

By that time the meat of the content is established, as are the voice and tone of it, and it’s easier to create an introduction that properly introduces the rest.

How to Make Introductions Work

An introduction that works frames something worth remembering and learning more about. So how do that in just a few sentences?

First get readers’ attention. Depending on the usual voice and tone of your brand, you might begin with a surprising statistic, an unexpected joke, a story or a conversational reference to something your readers experience.

For example, take the introduction of this blog post. In opening with a story, I hoped to draw you in and keep you on the page. Do that right, and you’ll hang on to readers through the rest of the piece.

Second, connect the opening to the point of the content, and say what the piece will do in the context of any stated problem. How is this specific piece going to address the downside of the statistic, or make something easier that most readers experience from time to time? ‘

Again looking at my intro to this blog, you’ll see a simple example. I connected my story to the idea of introductions and said the blog would explore how to develop good ones.

Obviously, the attention-getting opener and the presented solution need to be well connected, and that might be easier in some cases than others.

As long as your first sentence (whether a stat, a joke or an empathetic statement) does relate to the larger piece, feel free to take another sentence to clearly connect it to the rest of the introduction (as I did in this intro).

However, if the opening sentence stands on its own, don’t add sentences for the sake of a longer intro. Brevity is ideal when it comes to introductions, especially in journalistic and serious business pieces – your readers understand their problem; they want to read your answers.

If your content is part of a series of pieces, state that clearly and link back to the previous segments. If you’re repurposing content from another branded piece, consider referring to the other piece and linking to it, if possible.

Most importantly, don’t let your unformed introductions intimidate you. One of the perks of writing is the chance to carefully craft your message and develop it in any order you want.

As long as the meat of the content does what the title promises, the introduction simply needs to reinforce that fact (with a little flourish).

How Introductions Can Impact Your Webpage Performance

Introductions are important. Not only do they deliver on the headline and establish the rest of the piece, but they can help readers navigate the content and even impact its overall performance.

For example, if you have a very long how-to guide, or lots of points to cover, you may consider adding a table of contents at the top, with each bullet point linking to the section within the content, like I did in this piece.

Or, you might have a paragraph summary that gives the reader the gist of the topic (like our TL;DR in the intro). This can help them decide if they want to keep reading or bookmark it for later.

Of course, there are other factors to weigh, such as the perception of mobile users: Small screens make paragraphs seem even longer, so consider making your introductions one to two sentence paragraphs. Details like this can impact whether or not a person stays on the page or decides to come back later.

Following are two Google Analytics metrics that perform better when your introductions hold attention and encourage other engagement with your site.

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate gives a sense of how much interaction visitors have with your site. A bounce is a single-page session, meaning a visitor only looks at one page of your site – the home page, a blog or the contact page, for example. The bounce rate is the percentage of all site visits that only touch one page.

Now, even if someone finds your blog and reads a whole post, it still might count as a bounce if they leave the site after reading the post. However, if your posts tend to contain several helpful links to other pages on your site, visitors who actually read the content shouldn’t bounce as often.

Great introductions are the frontline against a high bounce rate on your blog. Draw readers in from the beginning to assure them that following your suggested links is worth their time.

Time on Page

The Time on Page metric measures how long visitors stay on a page of your site. So if you have an idea how long it takes to read through a typical blog (maybe five minutes), you can get a sense of whether or not the content is being read.

Be aware that Time on Page isn’t always accurate . If the visit is a bounce, no time is recorded. On the other hand, Time on Page continues to be recorded as long as the tab is open – even if the visitor isn’t looking at it right then (if they’re looking at another browser tab, for example).

Still, if the time spent on your pages is significantly lower than ideal, take a look at your intros to see if they’re as engaging as they could be.

If you want a more accurate sense of what visitors do on your pages, consider implementing event tracking or one of the metrics Quietly suggests in its article (link in previous paragraph).

Keep in mind that no one metric provides the overall picture of your content’s success, especially when it doesn’t measure exactly as you’d expect. Look at the bounce rate, time on page and average session duration together (along with other metrics) to determine if your content really offers what your audience wants.

For more on all aspects of content strategizing and creating, sign up for our email list and get instant access to your content strategy blueprint.

Have you come across a great introduction, or have a trick to writing stellar ones? Tell me about it in the comments!

Katie Mitchell
Katie Mitchell is a content writer for bizbuzzcontent. When she’s not writing, you can find her cooking, traveling, doing yoga, and relaxing with friends and family.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Email

Filed Under: Writing

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Testimonials

Professional content agency

Jessica leads one of the most professional content agencies I’ve ever worked with. We target a very niche industry, and Jessica and her team were very thoughtful in their approach. From planning thoughtful pieces, to researching and interviewing SMEs, to brainstorming promotion strategies, Jessica and her team maintain a high degree of professionalism and efficiency.

Steven S., Senior Manager, Demand Generation, Rentlytics

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:22:53-04:00

Steven S., Senior Manager, Demand Generation, Rentlytics

Jessica leads one of the most professional content agencies I’ve ever worked with. We target a very niche industry, and Jessica and her team were very thoughtful in their approach. From planning thoughtful pieces, to researching and interviewing SMEs, to brainstorming promotion strategies, Jessica and her team maintain a high degree of professionalism and efficiency.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/professional-content-agency/

Tailor-made content strategies

Jessica dedicated her time as a pro-bono volunteer with VolunteerMatch to help us with some key content marketing needs. What impressed me most about working with Jessica was the way she tailored her approach to accommodate the needs of our nonprofit with the resource constraints of our team. Jessica developed personas, one-pagers, case studies and website content that has resulted in an increase in traffic to our site and improved our ability to communicate to our key audiences.

Bree v.F., Director of Marketing and Engagement, VolunteerMatch

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:22:20-04:00

Bree v.F., Director of Marketing and Engagement, VolunteerMatch

Jessica dedicated her time as a pro-bono volunteer with VolunteerMatch to help us with some key content marketing needs. What impressed me most about working with Jessica was the way she tailored her approach to accommodate the needs of our nonprofit with the resource constraints of our team. Jessica developed personas, one-pagers, case studies and website content that has resulted in an increase in traffic to our site and improved our ability to communicate to our key audiences.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/tailor-made-content-strategies/

Highly targeted and relevant content

I've worked with Jessica at her company bizbuzzcontent for years. It's my go-to provider whenever my team is looking for high-quality content. What differentiates bizbuzzcontent is that they not only have superior writing skills but a rare ability to completely understand our industry, our company positioning, brand voice and tone, and customers. This just makes the content highly targeted and relevant, and goes a long way in achieving our marketing goals.

Nag P., Sr. Manager, Product Marketing, Salesforce

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:22:31-04:00

Nag P., Sr. Manager, Product Marketing, Salesforce

I've worked with Jessica at her company bizbuzzcontent for years. It's my go-to provider whenever my team is looking for high-quality content. What differentiates bizbuzzcontent is that they not only have superior writing skills but a rare ability to completely understand our industry, our company positioning, brand voice and tone, and customers. This just makes the content highly targeted and relevant, and goes a long way in achieving our marketing goals.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/highly-targeted-and-relevant-content/

Compelling content that drives results

I love Jessica and the team over at bizbuzzcontent. Within just a matter of a few interactions, she was able to understand, in depth, our complex solution and business model. Since then, she's been critical to us in driving compelling, engaging content via our blogs and white papers. She's a wonderful, thoughtful person to work with, and the work she's done has been a key factor in increasing our conversion rates.

Collin S., Angel Investor and Technology Executive

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:22:41-04:00

Collin S., Angel Investor and Technology Executive

I love Jessica and the team over at bizbuzzcontent. Within just a matter of a few interactions, she was able to understand, in depth, our complex solution and business model. Since then, she's been critical to us in driving compelling, engaging content via our blogs and white papers. She's a wonderful, thoughtful person to work with, and the work she's done has been a key factor in increasing our conversion rates.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/compelling-content-that-drives-results/

Outstanding process

bizbuzzcontent helps me efficiently leverage my own subject-matter expertise to create original content on timely topics. Together, we are able to distill complex topics into client-friendly articles that I can use across multiple platforms. I especially appreciate bizzbuzz’s super-efficient process because it keeps me on track for timely production of new content. Jessica Lee is a pleasure to work with, and I rely on her to bring a strategic eye to my publication efforts.

Priya H., Partner, Woodruff-Sawyer & Co.

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:23:04-04:00

Priya H., Partner, Woodruff-Sawyer & Co.

bizbuzzcontent helps me efficiently leverage my own subject-matter expertise to create original content on timely topics. Together, we are able to distill complex topics into client-friendly articles that I can use across multiple platforms. I especially appreciate bizzbuzz’s super-efficient process because it keeps me on track for timely production of new content. Jessica Lee is a pleasure to work with, and I rely on her to bring a strategic eye to my publication efforts.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/outstanding-process/

Strong content values

Jessica is a great content creator, writer, reporter and partner to work with. Highly articulate with strong content values and work ethos, Jessica adds great value to all projects she works on. I would happily recommend Jessica to people who wish to scale their content marketing efforts.

Andy B., C-Level Marketing and Strategy Consultant

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:23:14-04:00

Andy B., C-Level Marketing and Strategy Consultant

Jessica is a great content creator, writer, reporter and partner to work with. Highly articulate with strong content values and work ethos, Jessica adds great value to all projects she works on. I would happily recommend Jessica to people who wish to scale their content marketing efforts.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/strong-content-values-highly-recommended/

Added value

Jessica is a guest speaker of Microsoft internal training program. She made an awesome presentation of how to create marketable web ages to Microsoft Bing Ads product team and services team. Attendees found Jessica very engaging during the presentation. Microsoft Bing Ads is eager to apply the learning in our daily works, and look forward to partnering with Jessica to bring more value to digital advertising community.

Ping J., Product Manager, Microsoft Bing Ads

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:21:44-04:00

Ping J., Product Manager, Microsoft Bing Ads

Jessica is a guest speaker of Microsoft internal training program. She made an awesome presentation of how to create marketable web ages to Microsoft Bing Ads product team and services team. Attendees found Jessica very engaging during the presentation. Microsoft Bing Ads is eager to apply the learning in our daily works, and look forward to partnering with Jessica to bring more value to digital advertising community.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/added-value/

Critical extension of the marketing team

Jessica has been instrumental in building our content strategy from ground up, educating our stakeholders and increasing our exposure across all lines of insurance. I can say with confidence that she has been a critical extension of the marketing team, always producing timely deliverable. She has always been enthusiastic about creating new formats for us and new vehicles of information to help the marketing team raise awareness and drive internal adoption. Her most impressive feat from my perspective is how quickly and seamlessly she dived into our 12 lines of insurance. The dexterity and the level of expertise she demonstrated although she had never worked with insurance B2B client was absolutely incredible.

Stephanie M., VP Marketing Communications, Woodruff-Sawyer & Co.

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:21:33-04:00

Stephanie M., VP Marketing Communications, Woodruff-Sawyer & Co.

Jessica has been instrumental in building our content strategy from ground up, educating our stakeholders and increasing our exposure across all lines of insurance. I can say with confidence that she has been a critical extension of the marketing team, always producing timely deliverable. She has always been enthusiastic about creating new formats for us and new vehicles of information to help the marketing team raise awareness and drive internal adoption. Her most impressive feat from my perspective is how quickly and seamlessly she dived into our 12 lines of insurance. The dexterity and the level of expertise she demonstrated although she had never worked with insurance B2B client was absolutely incredible.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/critical-extension-of-the-marketing-team/

Excellent content program

We can't imagine how we managed without bizbuzzcontent before! Working with Jessica Lee is a dream. She is very creative and understands new concepts quickly. The content creation process at bizbuzzcontent is the most efficient we have come across in our many years of working with other writers and agencies. If you want an excellent content program and a company that goes above and beyond, hire bizbuzzcontent today!

Pauline J., CEO, Group Twenty Seven

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:21:10-04:00

Pauline J., CEO, Group Twenty Seven

We can't imagine how we managed without bizbuzzcontent before! Working with Jessica Lee is a dream. She is very creative and understands new concepts quickly. The content creation process at bizbuzzcontent is the most efficient we have come across in our many years of working with other writers and agencies. If you want an excellent content program and a company that goes above and beyond, hire bizbuzzcontent today!
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/excellent-content-program/

Trusted partner for years

Jessica and her team at bizbuzzcontent have been a trusted partner for years, and have helped us with our blog, web copy and email marketing, in addition to providing lots of guidance on other content projects. The team is able to quickly get up to speed on any content project's requirements and create quality content that's on target. Over the years, they've helped us educate, drive brand awareness and website traffic. I would definitely recommend bizbuzzcontent for content services.

Ashley G., Digital Ad Management, SearchForce

bizbuzzcontent
2018-07-31T17:18:31-04:00

Ashley G., Digital Ad Management, SearchForce

Jessica and her team at bizbuzzcontent have been a trusted partner for years, and have helped us with our blog, web copy and email marketing, in addition to providing lots of guidance on other content projects. The team is able to quickly get up to speed on any content project's requirements and create quality content that's on target. Over the years, they've helped us educate, drive brand awareness and website traffic. I would definitely recommend bizbuzzcontent for content services.
https://www.bizbuzzcontent.com/blog/testimonials/trusted-partner-for-years/
0
0
bizbuzzcontent

Recent Posts

  • How to Create Article Introductions That Do Their One and Only Job
  • B2B Content Marketing in 2019: The Audience Is King
  • How to Create Headlines That Make Your Readers Want More
  • Writing Advice from Six Famous Horror Authors
  • How to Create and Market an E-Book

Wordsmith LLC

Copyright © 2023   bizbuzzcontent   All rights reserved

Copyright © 2023 · Agency Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in