BLUF (bottom line up front)
BLUF, short for bottom line up front, means putting the answer or main point in the first sentences of a page or section.
BLUF is short for bottom line up front. It means you give the answer first, then the detail. The reader gets what they came for in the opening sentences, and everything after is support.
The habit comes from military writing, where people needed to act on a message without reading all of it. It suits AI search for a similar reason: when a platform looks for a passage that answers a question, a page that answers in its opening lines is easy to use.
What it looks like
Take a page on Fernhill Coffee's site that answers "How long does fresh coffee last?"
Without BLUF, it opens with the history of coffee roasting, gets onto storage in the third paragraph, and gives the answer near the end.
With BLUF, it opens like this: "Whole beans taste best within a month of roasting, and ground coffee within a week or two. Keep both in an airtight bag away from light." The history can still come later, for the readers who want it.
Why it helps
People skim. If the answer isn't near the top, many of them leave before they find it.
AI platforms split pages into passages and look for the one that best answers the question. An opening that answers the question by itself is an easy passage to pick and quote. An opening that warms up for three paragraphs gives them less to work with.
How to write it
Under each heading, start with the answer in one or two plain sentences. Name the subject each time, instead of leaning on a word like "it" to carry it over. Then add the reasons, the examples and the exceptions.
In AnswerOrbit
One of the eight page checks is called An opening that answers. It checks whether your page answers the prompt at the start, and compares it with the pages the platforms cite for the same prompt.