[Beginner – 104] The Secrets of Writing a Good First Paragraph for Your Post in Your Business Blog
These days, just having a website isn’t enough. Because of stiff competition, business owners find themselves having to do whatever it takes to sustain a certain level of engagement with their target clients. This can come in the form of a business blog, an informal way which allows you to connect with your clients in a safe space. Most people don’t know it, but a blog can actually boost your business given the popularity of this medium. However, it’s important to realize that the engagement you’re looking to garner needs to start with the written word. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the ways in which you can write a killer first paragraph that will keep your readers wanting more.
A Vital Marketing Tool
A business blog post is essentially a marketing tool for your company. That being said, there are certain conventions that are associated with such posts. To begin with, a business blog post shouldn’t go over the 500-word mark. There are exceptions to this rule. However, please understand that the average internet user doesn’t have time to read a whole story in the form of a blog post. We live in an instant era, and this has led to people not having a lot of patience anymore. With a limited attention span of about 5 seconds, you have to find a way to keep your message short and sweet. Even if you’re going to write a post that’s longer than 500 words, make sure to divide your content using subheadings, paragraphs and images to maintain the reader’s interest and keep them wanting to read more and more.
To Write a Good Paragraph Always Appeal to Your Reader’s Emotions
The first paragraph can be likened to a first impression. You don’t get a second chance to get a first impression, so it’s usually a good idea to hit the ground running from the get-go. A great way to do this would be to appeal to your reader’s emotions. It’s no secret that emotions rule the world: fear, love, passion are all emotions that everyone understands because they’ve experienced them in one way or the other. A practical way of reeling people in via emotional writing would be to open your piece with a hypothetical story which tugs at the heartstrings of the reader. You could decide to write about the time when you witnessed a kid being bullied and then reaching out to help him, or you could write about your first job interview and how the experience was so jarring that you left the room with your shirt drenched in cold sweat because of the sheer terror you experienced in the interview room. If you’re going to use this tactic, please make sure to relate it to the blog topic so people can draw parallels to that situation and the topic you’re writing about.
Use Questions
People love questions. I think that within every human being lies a fixer. Questions allow us to fix things by providing a solution in the form of an answer. At the same time, there’s something very enticing about a question: most of the time, a question lingers in your consciousness and won’t let go until you answer it. By asking readers a provocative question, you stimulate their inner fixer and make them want to keep reading even after they’ve answered the question in the first paragraph. Better still, you could decide to pose a fairly challenging question and then promise to answer it somewhere in the article. This piques one’s curiosity and holds their interest for extended periods of time.
Be Controversial
Being controversial can work in your favor when writing a good paragraph for a business blog. It can be a quote from a famous person with stats involved that lend credibility of the statement. The key is to use the statement to grab attention. Making inflammatory questions can seem counterintuitive; however, hitting the reader right between the eyes with a shocking statement can actually work in your favor as long as you acknowledge your boundaries. For example, if you’re a company that sells air conditioning units, you could jot down two sentences filled with statistics of the number of people who died last summer due to worldwide heat strokes. While this may seem tactless, the people who are reading your post may be prompted to keep reading in order to find out what exactly your point is. However, please don’t turn this into a regular thing as it will reduce its effectiveness.
Keep it Simple
KISS is an acronym which stands for Keep it Short and Simple. Simplicity is priceless as it contains clarity that can never be found in complication. Most blog writers feel like they have to impress their readers due to one reason or the other. Most people don’t care to be impressed and they want things given to them in a simple manner. It they can’t find this within the first few seconds of your blog, they’ll definitely hightail it to the next website and blog. A great way of ensuring that your opening paragraph is simple would be to read it aloud when you’re done writing it. If it sounds conversational, you’ve hit the simplicity jackpot. Good writing should talk to the reader the way two friends talk to each other seated on a couch. Once you’ve hooked a reader by writing a good paragraph that is simple and conversational, you can go on and flesh out your points in the subsequent paragraphs.
Hint at a Theme
Lastly, you could hint at a theme right from the beginning in order to give the reader a taste of what they can expect. Given the fact that most people are skimmers when it comes to online content, you really want to make sure that you hold their attention by establishing a theme right from the first paragraph so that you don’t leave them guessing all the way to the middle of the post.
Conclusion
A business blog can be a great way to connect with your target market and find out what they really care about. Don’t forget to pose a series of questions at the end of your post to stimulate a conversation since it’s from the responses that you get that you’ll be able to come up with new ways of meeting and exceeding the demands and expectations of your readers.