Be quick. I’m in a hurry.

The “Are we there yet?” Test

For whatever reason, your users are in a hurry. Whatever you write, they want to stop reading it as soon as possible. Subconsciously, they are constantly asking themselves, “When can I stop reading this?” And the answer is, “As soon as it stops being relevant, helpful, or useful.” Users are impatient, so it is the job of the web writer to convey as quickly as possible what a certain sentence or a certain paragraph or a certain section of a website is about. If your article is titled “How to Win a Free Trip to Las Vegas” but the first sentence of your article is “Yesterday, my daughter spoke her first word and it was ‘bagel’,” then some people are going to stop reading your article right there. If your article does indeed contain information on how to win a free trip to Las Vegas, then don’t bury it under information that doesn’t look like it has much to do with Las Vegas or free stuff.