Producing blog post introductions can be challenging due to the abundance of over 600 million blogs vying for your target audience’s attention. To distinguish yourself, it is crucial to craft a captivating introduction that is both well-written and reader-focused. An effective introduction has the power to enhance your entire piece and consequently drive more traffic. Fortunately, achieving this is simpler than it may seem, as it only requires a few essential elements.
- Grab the reader’s attention
- Touch on their main pain points
- Give a clear idea about what to expect from your piece
Make sure to conduct thorough research before writing a blog post intro, as it is impossible to create a good one without understanding your audience.
1. Slay Your Opening Sentence
Crafting opening sentences requires skill as they need to be captivating, concise, and representative of the overall tone and appeal of the article. Nowadays, people tend to spend merely 37 seconds scanning through an entire post, making it imperative to grab their attention from the beginning. If you succeed in accomplishing this, you will have no trouble engaging and retaining your readers throughout the entire article. Here are some techniques to create an intriguing first sentence:
- Start with a question
- State a problem (a.k.a the PAS method — Problem Agitate Solution)
- Use a metaphor or comparison
- Start with a story
- Lead with a statistic
- Make a bold/controversial statement
- Start with a quote
- Establish the groundwork for future pacing
2. Connect with the Reader Through a Shared Problem
To maintain reader engagement in your blog, it is crucial to demonstrate your understanding of their needs and provide effective solutions. Begin your post by acknowledging their concerns and showcasing your ability to alleviate their pain. An effective method to achieve this is to address the problem directly and support your claims with concrete statistics. Utilizing statistics allows you to present objective evidence and establish a mutual understanding with your readers. By establishing a common ground from the start, you foster trust, ensuring their continued interest and engagement. There are various approaches you can take to make the statistics in your post captivating.
- Add an impressive growth stat (“Instagram has reached XX million users”)
- Research a dollar-based stat (“Most bloggers make $X,XXX per month blogging”)
- Find a stat that shows how many others are dealing with the same problem (“XX% of marketers also struggle with budgeting”)
- Use two stats against each other as a comparison (“XX% of writers swear by using marketing personas, while XX% of customers want more personalization”)
3. Know Your Reader’s Psychology
It is rumored that empathy has become the latest essential in digital marketing, replacing data. If you can effectively evoke emotions from the beginning, your blog post will leave a lasting impression.
Powerful elements to use here include empathy, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), excitement, and even frustration.
Utilize a statistic (FOMO) which demonstrates the percentage of your customers who have already achieved success with this strategy, or are already generating profits using this method.
Ensure that the blog post (FOMO) is serialized, along with adding a disclaimer in the introduction indicating its position in the series (e.g., “This is the 4th installment of our 9-part series”). Regardless of the current position, readers should not overlook any past or future articles.
By referencing your community (FOMO), incorporating a statement about their consumption habits of your content (“In response to high demand within our Facebook group…”), you can create a sense of fear of missing out and enhance your credibility as an expert in the field.
To begin, inspire them and show support (Excitement). No matter which field you belong to, it’s not just about anxiety and darkness. Individuals do feel enthusiastic about their projects. Inject some excitement into the introduction (“Are you incredibly eager to embark on your travels once more?”).
Showing empathy to the audience is an effective way of assuring them that they are not alone in their experiences. Numerous individuals are facing similar challenges and going through the same ordeal.
4. Show Them the Value of Your Post
The initial impact of a blog post holds significance. Within a few seconds of loading a post, you must captivate the readers. If the content’s worth is not immediately apparent, you risk losing them. Demonstrate that investing time in your blog is worthwhile by offering something desirable to the reader. This entails presenting a precise outline of what the piece covers, potential outcomes, and the knowledge they can gain from it.
5. Cover the 5 Ws in an Interesting, Non-Info-Dumping Way
The following questions, known as the 5 Ws of marketing, will always remain relevant. They include:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Where?
- Why?
When crafting the introduction of your blog post, consider incorporating these elements by considering their relevance to the discussed topic. As an illustration, if your blog post is focused on budgeting, your 5 Ws could be utilized in this manner:
Who is the intended audience for this post?
What are a few of the primary obstacles individuals encounter when creating a budget?
What is the ideal time to begin budgeting?
Where can individuals locate valuable resources for budgeting?
By providing an intriguing response to these questions, you will establish the mood for the rest of the article and ensure that your readers remain engaged right from the beginning: Why is budgeting crucial?
6. Ask a Compelling Question
Utilizing a question in the introduction of a blog post is an effective method for captivating the reader. By presenting a thought-provoking and imaginative inquiry, curiosity is sparked and further questions may arise. In addition, a question serves as an excellent means to add a personal touch to your brand. It creates a sense of unity between the reader and writer, as if embarking together on a quest for enlightenment. Employing this technique is highly beneficial if you aim to establish a friendly tone in your article. Ultimately, this approach entices the reader to continue perusing in order to uncover the sought-after answer. Here are a few strategies for crafting your own captivating question:
- Open-ended question
- Rhetorical question (“Would there still be content if all marketers just quit one day?”)
- Yes/no question (“Have you ever encountered an analytics anomaly?”)
7. Pen a headline
You can choose whether to write the headline of your first draft before or after your post. There is no strict rule regarding the sequence. In this blog post, we recommend writing the headline after your content, so you can be inspired by your draft.
To create an excellent headline for your article, adhere to these guidelines.
- If you write blog posts with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, grab the top keyword for your article. This keyword should have a direct relation to your subject.
- Write down 25 versions of your headline to give yourself plenty of choices to consider. Make sure your keyword feels like a natural part of each headline if you include it.
- Narrow those 25 options to your five favorites.
- Choose a “winner” from your five finalists.
8. Edit and proofread your content
Regardless of how skilled the writer may be, every blog post requires editing in order to excel. Furnish your content with abundant doses of tender loving care to produce high-quality outcomes.
Begin by conducting a preliminary examination of spelling and grammatical errors through the built-in tools of your word processing software. Subsequently, employ more comprehensive resources like Grammarly or Hemingway to further address and rectify any issues.
Once you have completed these checks, it is important to review your writing manually. Errors that the computer overlooks will be detected by your own eyes. Additionally, your editing process should prioritize the quality of your thoughts as much as it does the accuracy of your spelling and grammar.
In a previous WordPress blog post, we offered helpful tips to simplify the manual editing and proofreading process. As you review your content, I recommend considering the following questions for your guidance:
- Do my logic and arguments make sense?
- Did I use my SEO keywords? Did I insert them naturally?
- Do I notice any words being used frequently that I can mix up with adjectives?
- Did I vary my sentence structure for more dynamic reading?
- Will my blog post be readable for my average reader?
- Did I follow my blog’s style throughout the post?
9. Add your meta data
The way your blog post is titled, described in the meta description, and presented in the URL all play a role in how people discover and comprehend it.
The title tag and meta description on search results show the title and description of a page. By default, WordPress utilizes your headline as the title tag and your excerpt as the meta description. However, if they do not meet the appropriate length for appearing in search results, they may be truncated.
In order to ensure appealing appearance, it is recommended to create a separate title tag and meta description. In WordPress, you have the option to modify this information by either altering your post’s code or utilizing a plugin.
Two well-known plugin choices are Yoast and All in One SEO. These plugins provide a section beneath your content in the WordPress editor, allowing you to handle your title tag and meta description. Additionally, they assist in effectively composing these search specifications.
The slug in your URL is the distinct set of words found at the end of the web address. In the case of this blog post, its URL is https://wordpress.com/go/build/how-to-write-a-good-blog-post/ and its slug is how-to-write-a-good-blog-post. This section of the URL varies for every blog post.
According to Ahrefs, the URL slug generated by WordPress is typically not optimized for search results, as it is derived from the headline. They suggest that an effective slug should incorporate relevant keywords and capture the essence of the blog post.
You can easily edit your URL slug without using any plugins or advanced coding. Simply go to the Block tab located in the right-hand menu, and make use of the URL option to modify your URL. Remember to save your draft or update your blog post to keep your new slug.
10. Publish your post
Once you have completed setting up your meta data, you can proceed to finalize your content for publication. Simply copy and paste your blog post from the word processor into your WordPress post, and the formatting will automatically transfer to the block editor.
Alternatively, you might have composed your blog post using the blog post editor. Although I generally discourage this method in case you unintentionally click “Publish,” I am aware that some writers manage well with it. Ultimately, do what works best for you.
In case you copy and paste your content from a Google Doc or any other online text editor, it is recommended to review your post and upload the images once again from your computer. The images copied from another source are stored on the website of your editor, whereas it is advisable to have them on your WordPress site for secure storage.
It’s all about practice
After successfully implementing a reliable method for composing your blog posts, the subsequent stage towards mastery is dedicated practice. By adapting your system to align with your workflow, you will be able to progress without the uncertainty of waiting for inspiration to magically bring forth words on your empty page.
If you combine a strong topic generation system with an airtight writing process, you will become an invincible blogger.
How long does it take to write a great blog post?
If you are new to writing blog posts, you may begin to question the appropriate amount of time it takes to write a high-quality post. Are you taking an excessive amount of time? Should you allocate more time for it?
According to the 2022 survey conducted by Orbit Media Studios, bloggers spend an average of four hours and one minute to finish a blog post.
However, consider this number as an approximation. The time it takes individuals to compose a blog post varies based on factors such as:
- Personal writing speed: All bloggers write at a different pace, and they’re all valid.
- Subject matter knowledge: It’s faster to write about a subject you know over one you don’t.
- Topic complexity: Most people will need more time to write about piezoelectric ceramics than how to blow a bubble with gum.
- Research requirements: It’ll take longer to put together a blog post that weaves together original interviews than one with a few online sources.
Additionally, Orbit Media Studios found that bloggers who dedicate a greater amount of time to their blog posts tend to achieve more success. Out of the respondents, 33% who spent six or more hours per blog post reported experiencing “strong results,” in contrast to the 22% benchmark.
