5 Intro Mistakes That Waste Your Readers’ Time

When you write 2-5 articles weekly for the same audience, you stop writing for word count and start writing for attention.

I like to make sure my paragraphs pass the “Okay, and?” test. If they don’t add urgency, empathy, or a direct path to value, I delete.

Below are five intro mistakes I’ve eliminated from my writing using the test, along with examples that demonstrate exactly how I correct them.

1. Burying the lede

The title already sets the scene. Don’t dramatize the obvious.

If your headline is interrogative and asks “why”, “what”, “how”, or “when”, answer it immediately.

⛔ Bad Example:

Title: How HR teams can make employee rest days mandatory

Workplace burnout is a growing issue, and it’s costing companies more than just productivity. Burned-out employees are 2.6 times more likely to look for another job, and the fallout shows up in poor decisions and quiet disengagement.

Mandatory off days aren’t just a nice-to-have; they’re a strategic move to protect performance and retention.

In this article, we’ll show you how to integrate rest days into your HR policy. But first, let’s define what a mandatory rest day actually means and why it matters.

“Okay, and?”

The headline asked, “HOW.” The intro is still vaguely answering “WHY”.

✅ Better Example 1:

Title: How HR teams can make employee rest days mandatory

Your people are exhausted. Full stop. You already know one random off day won’t fix everything, but regular, mandatory ones just might.

Here’s how to embed them into your HR policy.

✅ Better Example 2:

Title: How HR teams can make employee rest days mandatory

If you’re not giving your team time to rest, you’re paying for it in low morale.

It’s not just “tiredness”. Their judgment starts to suffer too. When that happens, they’re 2.6x more likely to resign.

Here’s how to build mandatory rest days into your HR policy before that happens.

✅ Better Example 3:

Title: How HR teams can make employee rest days mandatory

Your best engineer hasn’t taken a full break in 8 months.

Last week, they pushed a final commit, opened LinkedIn, and started replying to recruiter DMs. They’re not just burned out, they’re gone.

Here’s how to make mandatory rest days part of your HR policy—before the next one leaves.

Why these work:

• Starts with consequence (pain)
• Frames urgency with clear stakes
• Answers “how” immediately
• Acknowledges what the reader already knows

2. Laundry-List Stats

98% of intro stats are either made up (just like this one) or dumped without context. They tell no story. They connect to nothing.

⛔ Bad Example:

Title: How to build a tech documentation system

48% of IT teams lack proper documentation. 5% rely on tribal knowledge to manage core systems. 41% say they’d need over a month to rebuild from scratch if a key engineer left.

In today’s digital age, organizations must maintain updated technical documentation to ensure business continuity and avoid disruptions…

“Okay, and?”

What do three stats (from three different reports) mean to the reader who needs a “how” right now?

What’s wrong:

• No narrative
• No direct consequence to the reader
• Feels like filler

✅ Better Example 1:

Title: How to build a tech documentation system

If your lead dev quits tomorrow, would anyone know where the backend configs are? Or how the billing logic works?

If your answer is no, you’re sitting on a serious business risk.

Here’s how to build a documentation system that doesn’t fall apart when someone leaves.

 

My hot take is that not every intro needs a stat, but if I’m trying to poke a pain point with one or two, I make sure it’s contextually relevant to the topic.

 

✅ Better Example 2:

Title: How to build a tech documentation system

In 2021, a $12M core banking migration at a mid-sized Latin American bank failed within 72 hours.

The rollback led to $2.5M in fines and emergency costs, a 4.2% rise in customer churn, and a nine-month delay that added $5.8M in extra costs.

Post-mortem? 70% of issues were due to poor technical documentation.

And it’s not just large-scale migrations. Undocumented “quick fixes” can just as easily snowball into breakdowns, especially when a dev leaves.

Here’s how to build a documentation system that prevents both.

Why these work:

• Show cause and effect
• Use plain language
• Anchor in real scenarios

3. Link Graveyards

You’ve fought for the reader’s attention. Don’t send them down a link rabbit hole with five new tabs. You’re not Wikipedia.

⛔ Bad Example:

Title: How to build a microservices monitoring system

Monitoring strategies in a microservices architecture are critical for maintaining system health, performance, and reliability at scale. As distributed systems grow in complexity, traditional monitoring approaches—relying solely on host-level metrics or manual log inspection—fall short. Modern applications often span dozens, if not hundreds, of loosely coupled services, each generating its own metrics, logs, and traces.

As covered in our deep dive on Kubernetes architecture and our primer on container security best practices, managing microservices is complex. This article offers a practical overview of monitoring in microservices: what to track, how to design your telemetry stack, and which tools to consider. We’ll look at key concepts like whitebox vs. blackbox monitoring, service-level objectives (SLOs), distributed tracing, and real-time alerting. By the end, you’ll have a framework for building a monitoring system that scales with your infrastructure, without overwhelming your teams or budgets.

 

“Okay, and?”

The reader is lost, overwhelmed, and likely clicking away already. Worse if they’re external links.

If you can, save the links for later in the body. Anchor your intro in:

• Framing the problem
• Showing empathy
• Building trust
• Promising the solution

4. Keyword Stuffing

Search now rewards context over exact keyword matches. And readers can smell desperation.

⛔ Bad Example:

Title: Top 10 Freelance SEO Strategists (EMEA)

Looking for the best freelance SEO strategists in EMEA? These expert SEO content marketer and content strategy experts provide top SEO services to boost your EMEA business SEO rankings with proven SEO strategies…

“Okay, and?”

This sounds desperate and spammy. Zero value.

Write intros that feel human. Explain what’s coming and why it matters.

5. The False “We”

You’re not even French, oui?

⛔ Bad Example:

Title: How sales can automate CRM updates

We all know how frustrating outdated CRM systems can be. We struggle with clunky interfaces and missing data, slowing our sales teams down…

“Okay, and?”

You sell the CRM software. You aren’t struggling. The reader is.

✅ Better Example:

Title: How sales can automate CRM updates

Your sales team hates your CRM. They’re wasting billable hours on manual entry while deals stall.

Two issues. One. They’re frustrated. Two. You have a data architecture problem. Here’s how to fix both with automated updates.

Why this works:

• Uses “you” and “your” to assign ownership
• Uses “they’re” to show empathy from the reader’s perspective
• Positions the solution clearly

The Anatomy of a Ruthlessly Effective Article Intro

It does ONE JOB: transition readers from headline promise to body value without friction.

If a sentence doesn’t clarify the stakes or point to the solution, DELETE IT.

Good intros demand attention, not patience.