Don’t Bury the Lede

Don’t bury the lede. This is the single most important writing advice I have received. That’s it. You can stop reading now.

If you made it this far it’s because you may want to learn more about why I find this to be the most important piece of writing advice.  I read a lot of blogs and  most of them try to build up to their main point but I lose interest and never get to it. However, blogs that lead with the main takeaway always make me want to read more. For instance, I will re-write everything I just wrote except I’m going to bury the lede.

I read alot of blogs. Some are really engaging and some aren’t. Many of them take a long time to get to their main point but by then I have lost interest. Others make their main point right away which makes me want to read the whole thing. This makes me think of the best advice I ever heard which is “don’t bury the lede”.

My intuition tells me that many people and brands bury the lede because they want to increase time on site, make users scroll past ads in the body, or collect clicks to ‘read more’. It’s never because it is a great user experience. I would rather lead with the best stuff up front, that way if someone keeps reading and spends time on site, I know they are interested in diving into the topic instead of just searching for the main point.