Double Your Readership with a Fantastic Introduction

June 29th, 2009 / Blog Writing Tips, Blogging Tips

Your introductions are not that great. Sorry to be rude, but you could be getting ten times the readers if you only wrote better opening paragraphs. If you’re wondering how this is possible, consider the opening to this post. How did I grab your attention?

Your blog could have the most informative content on the internet with a design that blows others out of the water and still not get a lot of readers. The reason for this is that your introductions just aren’t sucking readers into your content. You need to get them hooked on your posts, right from the start. To do this, you’ll need to pull a few tricks out of your sleeve.

Five Sure-Fire Introduction Formulas

The Hypothetical Situation

Imagine this: you come across a blog post that assumes you have $5,000 to spend on a start-up website, and asks if you think you’d blow it on the wrong things. Sounds like you’re interested in your budgeting now, huh?

The hypothetical situation is great for drawing attention from specific types of readers. It takes some imagination to put yourself in the shoes of readers, but once you’re there, they’ll follow you wherever you take them.

The “no offense” Introduction

This is where you start your blog post with an “honest truth.” The same technique is used in the intro paragraph above. Explain to your readers (kindly) what they’re doing wrong, and why. Then proceed to the solution. This should be used with some light humor.

The Overwhelming Factoid

The overwhelming factoid technique involves digging up a seemingly startling fact, such as “50% of twitter users are spam bots!” or “40% of Blogsessive readers are actually non-bloggers.”

When using the overwhelming factoid, it’s best to use either percentages or a seemingly large number, such as “Google makes 1.2million selling T-shirts!” Since Google makes billions, this really isn’t that startling. Still, it brings in some readers.

The Startling Rhetorical Question

You like making money, right? Well if you take advantage of the Startling Rhetorical Question, you’ll be making lots of it from visitors who desperately answer “yes!” to your question. Try starting a blog post with a question about your readers’ desired outcome. Would they like to gain 200% more traffic? Of course they would.

The Personal Admission

I have to be honest – these tips really work. The Personal Admission will have readers interested in your content because they connect with you. Personal admissions range from “to be honest – I don’t think this works” to “to tell you the truth – this changed my life.” A personal endorsement is the most powerful form of marketing, and you can use your own authority to your advantage when crafting great posts.

Introductions can often be overlooked by even the best blogger. However, writing a great introduction can just about double your reader engagement. These techniques can even be combined and mismatched in the body of the post to keep your reader’s attention. Sounds awesome, right?

Tags: advice, introduction, readers, tips, writing

This article has 12 comments

Adrian | Rubiqube
June 29th, 2009

This is the best “blogging tips” article I’ve read in 2009. Period! And it’s true, a catchy title and great intro can boost an article to web stardom.

Best example I can think of: a while ago I wrote an article called “My First Big Freelancing Mistake!”. I wrote it quickly, it was more for myself and I didn’t expect it to be too popular. It actually received about 2k views and 10 retweets. Not much, but comparable to other articles that I’ve put some effort into. Why?

Here’s an excerpt: “What’s important is that in doing so, I made a stupid mistake that was going to affect my freelancing activity on the short term and that could have even jeopardized it on the long term”.

It has some of the ingredients you mentioned, but I didn’t do it on purpose. Now that I have some ideas from this article, I’ll try to do this more often! Thanks!

P.S. Sorry, Alex, for taking so much of your space with this long comment.
Richael | Domain Marvelous
July 1st, 2009

Wow, I never think of how the first few lines can result in you getting loyal readers or increasing your bounce rate. This was a well timed post for me, as I have noticed a lower number of returning visitors to my blog. Guess how I style my post openings has got to do a lot with this.

Thanks for a very informative post.
Brenon MacLaury
July 7th, 2009

This is a great post! It’s so true, too. If people don’t like, or can’t relate to, the first couple sentences, what are the chances they’ll continue reading? Thanks for the great tips!

Brenon MacLaury
Jake | Web Journey
July 7th, 2009

Man, I learned so much. I can’t believe how many articles I have read on introductions that really haven’t helped. It amazes me that this pretty short articles has taught me so much about introductions. Thanks a lot; you have a new reader.
bisnis internet
July 22nd, 2009

5 great tips, thanks for the article. I will try it at my blog.

David
Mike
August 10th, 2009

Nice tips, this is especially useful to me and I can see how it can help both beginners and anyone else looking to fine tune their pages. I plan on trying some of these suggestions on my Blackberry blog, thanks!
ugur
September 7th, 2009

thx for the article
Ricky
September 7th, 2009

Wow! That is a great tip. I usually stuff my introduction with some big numbers, questions or criticism. I really like your ideas, you earned yourself a new loyal reader.lol.
Keep rocking
Mary
September 12th, 2009

I am a newbie. Thank you, for removing my brain and kneading this lesson so well into my old brain (50).

Thanks for this post.
Darren
September 23rd, 2009

Great advice, I haven’t heard this tip before. It is quite simple really, but I know I’ve over looked it. Sometimes I guess the most obvious hints are right in front of you. Like A Good Opening Sentence or Headline. I will certainly apply this method. Thank you for the shared wisdom
I’m now a loyal reader!
Oh, by the way, I found your blog from a post headline of yours while searching for ideas.
AndyDriver
October 2nd, 2009

Good article. A blog is just like a book, except every post is like reading the first page all over again. Gotta get the reader hooked, again, every time!
Rajesh Kanuri
October 10th, 2009

its really true.. great introductions ll definitely increase the blog’s conversion ration