Stop writing introductions that repeat the heading

Open any page on your site and check the first sentence. Does it say the same thing as the heading, just rearranged? That's not an introduction. That's you stalling.

A heading says "Three ways to prune your navigation." The first sentence says "There are three ways you can prune your navigation." You've used thirty words to advance the reader zero inches.

The heading already did that job

People read the heading. They decided to keep going. The first sentence is your chance to give them something new — context, a concrete detail, the reason this matters, or just the first actual point.

Consider: "Three ways to prune your navigation" followed by "Start with pages that get zero clicks in analytics." Now you're somewhere.

Or: "Most navigation menus grow because no one has permission to remove anything." That's a reason to care.

Both beat "There are three ways to prune your navigation" by a mile.

Repetition signals filler

When the opening sentence echoes the heading, readers assume the rest will be padded too. They're often right. If you're repeating yourself in the first breath, you probably don't have enough to say — or you haven't figured out what the real point is yet.

This is fixable in revision. Delete the throat-clearing sentence. See if the second sentence works as the opener. It usually does.

What the first sentence should do

It should justify the heading's promise. Give a detail, a stakes statement, or the first move. Not a reworded version of what they already read.

Bad: "Image alt text is important for accessibility. Alt text helps screen reader users understand images."

Better: "Image alt text is important for accessibility. Write it for someone who can't see the image but needs to know why it's there."

The second version assumes you've read the heading and moves directly to useful information.

Edit from the top

Most first-sentence repetition happens because you're writing to figure out what you mean. That's fine as a draft move. It's not fine as a publishing move.

When you edit, start at the top of each section. Read the heading, then the first sentence. If they cover the same ground, cut the sentence or replace it with something that earns its spot.

This applies to subheadings that actually subdivide too. The sentence after a subheading shouldn't repeat the subheading. It should continue the thought.

It's not about being clever

You don't need a hook or a twist. You need to not waste the reader's time. Repetition wastes time.

If your heading says "Why metadata inheritance matters," your first sentence should not say "Metadata inheritance matters for several reasons." It should say "Most CMS platforms let child pages inherit metadata from their parent, but almost no one sets it up."

That's not clever. It's just not redundant.

Check your last five posts

Go back and read the heading and first sentence of each section. Count how many times the first sentence is a longer version of the heading. Then fix them.

You'll probably find this pattern in half your pages. It's common. It's also easy to stop once you notice it.