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A client in Phoenix asked me why our blog posts all start the same way, and I couldn't answer him
Last month a client named Dave in Phoenix asked me why every post on his blog opens with the same two lines. I pulled up the last 40 posts and he was right. 38 of them started with some version of a broad statement about the industry before getting to the point. He said his readers are busy contractors who want the answer in line one, not line four. So we rewrote 12 posts to lead with the actual tip, no warm up. Bounce rate dropped from 71 percent to 58 percent over six weeks. Now I check the first sentence of everything before it goes out. Anyone else cut the intro paragraph and see numbers move, or did it backfire for you?
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richard_dixon24d ago
There was a study from the Nielsen Norman Group that stuck with me, they tracked eye movement and found people read in an F pattern, so they hit the first two lines hard and then skim. If your point is buried in line four, most folks never get there. I had the same thing happen with a newsletter I ran for a hardware store, we cut the setup and just led with the sale, open rate went from 19 to 26 percent. Funny how we spend all that time writing warm ups nobody reads.
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grace_white24d ago
Guessing most people just want the sale and don't care about fancy eye studies.
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