“Tell me, Carmen, do you know what foreplay is?”
“No.”
“Good! Neither does El Guapo.”
…and apparently neither does Google.
One of the first lessons that hit home for me in writing was the concept of the introduction. The lede. The hook. Those crucial first few seconds that a writer has to catch the reader’s attention, get her to taste the bait long enough for the claws to sink in, gain traction and snatch her up for the ride.
To accomplish this, I try to use interesting metaphors, analogies and anecdotes in the introductions that can appear to have nothing to do with the subject at hand and then find a way to tie it creatively to my main points. The rule I follow for most feature stories says that the reader should be captivated and interested in the first paragraph, but not realize what the story is really about until the end of the second paragraph.
The problem, unfortunately, with following this rule is that if you’re sneakily walking your reader down a winding path, you’re probably not going to use the major keywords that align with your subject matter very often in the beginning. After all, you don’t want to scare her off, and the punch line is nothing without an efficient set-up.
But sadly, search engine optimization (SEO) techniques frown on any fooling around, even during the courting stages, and encourage you to get the point early and often.
This is because writing that has keywords in the titles, headings and lead paragraphs of the text will have increased visibility in searches for related content, and thus, usually increased views. This strategy plays nicely with news stories, since the most important information in a news story is concentrated in the lead paragraph. But what about stories that don’t blow their load in the first three lines?
Isn’t the chase half the fun? I think so, and I’m afraid of having to choose between SEO and quality content. I prefer the seductive, methodical ledes that serve the story rather than the search and think that increased exposure to compromised content is counter productive.
But is there a way to accomplish both?
What role does the introduction play in your writing?
Friday night, November 26, 2010, the day after Thanksgiving.
