Your one chance: the first paragraph

Most people will read the first promonit pargraph that they see... if they think your site will provide them with the information they want that is. That's why it's important to have a good headline [2].

So, assuming that your visitors will read the first paragraph (which they will if they read anything), that is your one chance to grab them. They will only read the rest of your article or body of text if that first paragraph catches them. How do you catch them? Well, almost all of the principals that apply to your headline also apply to your first paragraph. Maybe I should say that again... Write your first paragraph following the same rules you do for your headline! So if you haven't read my blog post on that, I recommend that you do and then come back here for tips on writing the rest of your text.

A tip for your first paragraph: repeat your headline in your first sentence. Don't copy it word for word, but restate it to help clarify what your article is about and to assure the reader that the the text is what it's advertised to be. It might also help you get started writing your article.

Keeping your readers attention

If your visitors get past the first paragraph, congratulations! Now you have to keep them reading. And if you want to keep them reading you have to keep their intrest. After you write your article, read through it a couple times and try to spot any place that might be boring or hard to follow. Before I write an article (and while I'm writing one too), I will jot down important and intersting points that I can use in my text. Doing this can really help, esepically to keep your flow.

When I say keeping your flow I mean making your text flow along as a watter does down a river. It needs to gently move from one main idea to the next. This is where writing down and organizing all my main points and ideas before hand really helps; I can always see what idea I'm on and what I need to go to next. This will also help to keep your articles focused and include everything you wanted to touch on, which is also important to do.

Of course it can be hard to write down all your main points at the start, that's why I'll write them as I go along too and insert them at their appropriate places. Doing that just tends to be slightly more difficult as it's harder to arrange and organize paragraphs of text rather than just ideas. And remember, don't go off chasing bunny trails! The main points in your article should all be closely related and you should stick to them! If an idea you jotted down doesn't go, delete it!

Tip: If you have an important idea or point that you want to mention, but you can't really fit it anywhere and it isn't very long, try putting it in as a tip (such as this one)! It won't break up the flow and people will pay more attention to it!

Article structure

It's often a good idea to break your articles up into sections, especially when it's longer and covers several main ideas. This allows you to break up the flow of your text without confusing a reader. In fact, a reader can first skim down your article to see what all you cover (which visitors tend to do). If a reader gets boored and you keep your sections short, he/she can easily spot another section that they think looks more intersting and skip to it (instead of leaving your site alltogether).

I like to use headings to define my sections. I know some people like to split up their articles into pages, but I personally find that very annoying. Spreading your article onto several pages also disables people from easily being able to move from one section to another. Sure there are the links to all the pages with their section names (like on about.com [3]), but tell me what's easier; click on a link and wait for the page to load or to scroll up or down with your mouse wheel? I suppose splitting up your article into pages could have it's benefits with search engines, but I say it isn't worth the down sides of doing it.

Another thing you should take into account with your sections; put the more important sections at the beginning of your article and least important last. This will help keep your visitors reading. Google also values text at the top of a page more than it does at the bottom.

There, I have now bestowed my writing wisdom, little though it be, upon you. Now, go and write that which people will read! Or you could check out more of my writings, like the one on SEO