"Without a good title, the article is dead"

byWillieS

777 followers

11 years ago

The most important part in any article is the title. Without a compelling title, your reader won’t even get to the first sentence. After the title, nevertheless, the first sentence is certainly very important, but if it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, the article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until … safely hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit: the lead.”

Journalists call this critical introductory section the “lede,” and when properly executed, it’s the bridge that carries your reader from an attention-grabbing headline to the body of your blog post. If you want to nail it, try to be short and direct.