Does anyone remember learning about the inverted pyramid in school? Maybe it was just us journalist wannabes?
The inverted pyramid style of content writing saw the most important information presented first, followed by more details throughout the rest of the article. The idea stemmed from newspapers, that a reader should understand the key elements from the headlines and first few sentences, and then can keep reading for added color. It looked a little something like this:
The internet got us away from this style. The easiest example involves cooking recipes, where you have to scroll through a 1,000 word story about where the writer first encountered this meal and a road trip where the best version of it was tasted before you get to the actual recipe. That’s the exact opposite of the inverted pyramid. The exverted pyramid?
My argument is that with the advent of AI search, the inverted pyramid needs to make a comeback. As AI indexes look to sift through all the fluff to pinpoint the most relevant information written in the most straight-forward way, I strongly encourage you to structure content as if you are a newspaper writer from the 1920s.
Write the who, what, where, when, and how first. Simple and to-the-point. Then fill in details around it.
Author’s note 1: The 4 W’s and an H are so outdated that, when I just typed “the who,” my Mac wanted to autocorrect it to The Who, a band that stopped being relevant in the 70s (that is unfair and untrue — I’m sorry The Who fans; I just wanted a joke to illustrate the age of the reference that was still apparently newer than “the who, what, where, when, why.” And yes, I’m very proud of myself for putting an emdash and a semi-colon into a single sentence.).
Author’s note 2: Arc Intermedia is very, very, very good at writing for humans and AI engines. Consider enlisting our help in content creation. You can contact us here and profess your love for The Who or old-school journalism or long-winded recipe blogs.
