They say that the head­line is the most impor­tant part of your online copy. But your deck and lead copy are just as impor­tant. These often make up the the sec­tion called “above the fold,” which is the top­most sec­tion of your website’s page, with­out any scrolling.

(Think of the front-​​page head­lines and pic­tures of a news­pa­per, folded on a news­stand. This sec­tion is vital, for it’s the sec­tion that sells papers.)

Online, it’s the first screen your vis­i­tors see when they hit your site. The deck copy is usu­ally the por­tion imme­di­ately fol­low­ing your head­line (also known as the “sub­head­line”), and the lead is the open­ing of your let­ter. (Usu­ally the first few para­graphs if not sen­tences of your body copy.)

There are many things you need to take into account when devel­op­ing your “above the fold” sec­tion. Adding a pic­ture, grab­bing atten­tion, per­haps even incor­po­rat­ing audio and video.

But for the pur­poses of this arti­cle, I want to explore the con­cept of com­mu­ni­cat­ing your core idea, ben­e­fit, claim or promise, and doing it in the most pow­er­ful, per­sua­sive, and pro­duc­tive way pos­si­ble, in that vital above-​​the-​​fold sec­tion. It’s called…

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