The Critical Importance of Titles and Leads in Our Writing (2024)

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Leads References FAQs

InsiderPosted | Category: BRM Capability, BRM Community, Professional Development | Contributed by Roy Youngman

The Critical Importance of Titles and Leads in Our Writing (1)

The quality and information contained in your writing doesn’t matterif no one ever reads it. As a leader and Business Relationship Manager, writing to convey a message or to impart knowledge is a necessary skill. We must all learn to write content that compels people to want to read (or watch in the case of video content).Drawing people in to read your writing is an art and science long practiced by journalists, bloggers, and article writers and we can benefit from their experience. When it comes to getting your audience to read blog posts, articles or webinar pages, the key is the carefully-chosen words in Title and the Lead.

The Title of anything helps the reader decide whether or not the subject warrants their precious time to read further. If the Title is compelling enough, the reader might be willing to invest a few more moments by reading the first sentence or two – commonly called theLead. If the Lead is compelling enough, the reader might be willing to invest even more time to read some or all of the content. This cognitive style of most people for selecting what they will and will not read is well known to journalists and other writers. The best ones give a lot of thought to the words they use to formulate their titles and leads.

The purpose of a title is to:

  • Grab Attention – Compel the reader to read the lead-in.
  • Predict Content – Set an expectation of what awaits them.
  • Establish Tone – Create an atmosphere appropriate to the subject matter.
Tips:
  • The fewer words the better
  • Consider answering who, what, where, when, why, how questions
  • Ask yourself, “what is the first question someone is likely to ask about this article?”, and then answer it
  • Pretend you’re Yoda and twist the words, i.e. “Titles and Leads in Writing, the Critical Importance
  • First create a small set of the most important keywords in your content, then rearrange those words
  • Be specific, not general
  • Use numbers when appropriate, i.e. “The Top 10 Tips for Effective Titles and Leads
  • Brainstorm titles with others whenever possible

Use power words that have a positive psychological impact on the reader:

The Critical Importance of Titles and Leads in Our Writing (2)

As you formulate a Title,alwaysrespect the readers experience.Nevercreate expectations that won’t be met and damage your credibility with the reader.

Leads

The Lead is the introductory section of your blog post or wiki page that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story. If a reader gets to your Lead, that means you did a good job on your title. The reader has given you a few moments of their time –like a second or two!What you do in those precious moments will determine if the reader is willing to invest more time. That is how important a Lead is.Coming up with a good lead is hard. Even great writers acknowledge that writing an effective Lead is the hardest part of the article.

The Lead is more than just a part of your article. It is THE part of your article that shows up in other places where potential readers scan reading material. Few, if any, readers are opening every blog post one after the other to decide which ones to read. Instead, they are scanning through a list of blog posts, looking for something that catches their interest. The Title and the Lead are all that show up in the consolidated list – the decision to read or not to read is made there.

Tips:
  • Keep it short: One, two, or three sentences at the most
  • The first sentence is the most important; make it intriguing
  • Put yourself in the shoes of readers: Know what will interest them, thrill them, or confuse them
  • Once again, consider answering who, what, where, when, why, how questions
  • Use an active voice; avoid starting sentences with “It is…”, “There are…”, “A common…”, etc.
  • Consider this the beginning of a personal relationship between you and your reader
  • Don’t make readers have too work to hard to see where you’re going
  • Avoid clichés, puns, dictionary-definitions or any other technique that turns you off – it will turn off readers as well
  • Write the Lead first – it will confirm you have something worth writing about
  • Always review the first impression of your Title and Lead as your readers will first see them – in Confluence, that means in a list of blog posts (like in the home page of the Members Hangout or Online Campus Dashboard) or a list of wiki pages (like the Members Templates and Examples home page or Webinar home page)
  • Proofread –Never make spelling or grammar errors!

Leads and Titles share a common truth: As you formulate either of them,alwaysrespect the reader’s experience.Nevercreate expectations that won’t be met and damage your credibility with the reader.

Megan Krausehas a wonderful blog post calledHow to Write a Lead: 10 Dos, 10 Don’ts, 10 Good Examples. The entire post is great but the examples are excellent and could serve as inspiration when you are struggling to write your Lead.

2 Responses

  1. April 3, 2022 at 8:03 am

    […] Create attention-grabbing titles – draw the reader in from the beginning. Readers often decide if they will spend time on your blog based on how you introduce your topic. The Critical Importance of Titles and Leads in Our Writing […]

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  2. October 5, 2022 at 1:06 pm

    […] O trabalho duro que você coloca elaborando seus posts informativos só é compensado, se você acetar no título do post. Esse é o primeiro passo. […]

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The Critical Importance of Titles and Leads in Our Writing (2024)

FAQs

The Critical Importance of Titles and Leads in Our Writing? ›

The purpose of a title is to: Grab Attention – Compel the reader to read the lead-in. Predict Content – Set an expectation of what awaits them. Establish Tone – Create an atmosphere appropriate to the subject matter.

Why are titles important in writing? ›

The title of your manuscript is usually the first introduction readers have to your published work. Therefore, you must select a title that grabs attention, accurately describes the contents of your manuscript, and makes people want to read further.

Why are leads important in writing? ›

A good lead does just that. It gives readers the most important information in a clear, concise and interesting manner. It also establishes the voice and direction of an article.

What is the significance importance of the title? ›

A title is a story's first impression. People make a first impression with appearance, wardrobe and body language. Stories do it with a title.

What is the use of titles in writing? ›

Titles of full works like books or newspapers should be italicized. Titles of short works like poems, articles, short stories, or chapters should be put in quotation marks. Titles of books that form a larger body of work may be put in quotation marks if the name of the book series is italicized.

Why do titles matter so much? ›

Job titles help identify a person's job role and create a brief description of that role and the career path to which it belongs.

Why are titles and headings important? ›

to provide structure of the document. to show logical relation and development of ideas. to show hierarchical relationship of ideas (headings, sub-headings) to make readers scan and read the document selectively and also to hold the patience of the readers.

What are leads and why are they important? ›

A lead is someone who shows interest in your products or services. Over time, this person could become a loyal customer of your business. While there are different types of leads, having a pool of these potential buyers is key to steady growth, no matter your industry.

Why is lead so important? ›

Lead is still widely used for car batteries, pigments, ammunition, cable sheathing, weights for lifting, weight belts for diving, lead crystal glass, radiation protection and in some solders.

What does a lead do in writing? ›

A lead is an opening paragraph that gives the audience the most important information of the news story in a concise and clear manner, while still maintaining the readers' interest.

Why are titles so important to some people? ›

The reason why names and titles are important is because it gives us meaning and is how we identify ourselves and our actions. "We all want to feel important at our places of business, because we are important. ” (Forbes). A title is used to base our perception of value to ourselves and others.

What is the importance of title in essay? ›

An essay title is important because it accomplishes a few things: Tells readers what the essay is about. Catches potential readers' attention. Helps researchers sort essays and find the ones most relevant to their work.

How does title affect the text and the reader? ›

Researchers in cognitive and educational psychology have demonstrated several important effects of headings and titles on text processing: headings improve memory for text organization; headings influence text comprehension by activating readers' prior knowledge; and titles can bias text comprehension by their emphasis ...

Why is a good lead important? ›

Good leads capture the essence of the who, what, when, where, why, and how — but without giving away the entire show. The best leads are enticing. The beckon, promising the reader their time will be well-spent and sets the tone and direction of the piece.

Why are titles important in articles? ›

For the majority of readers, the title is the message of the paper. This is why it's so important that titles be succinct, accurate, and balanced in their presentation of the results. When readers do decide to read the full text of an article, it is generally because they were interested by the title.

What does writing titles mean? ›

Yale College Writing Center www.yale.edu/writing Titles are labels that convey what a piece of writing is or what it is about.

What is the purpose of having a title? ›

A title is a document that shows legal ownership to a property or asset. A title can represent ownership of a real asset such as a car or an intangible property or assets such as a trademark.

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