You know I like to write more than the average blogger.
Not that I enjoy writing more, but that I enjoy writing more words than the average blogger. It's an affliction that I was born with and it hasn't gone away. I like to be as in depth as possible and in some cases it may scare away some readers at www.rerockstar.com, but for those that are willing to stick around and bear with me (and there seems to be plenty), I think I often provide a pretty complete picture of the issue at hand. Some call it over-doing it, I call it more interesting.
In my never-ending quest to bring my readers the best blog I possibly can, I have been wondering if my current set up is what readers want. I know there are a lot of theories out there in real estate about how one should set up their blog (just look at the opinions on whether you should force registration on your search) and what is best for the consumer, but I'm not 100% sure what I think on this issue.
The issue at hand.
To the left, you can see a screen capture from my blog with a recent article on it. This article appears on the front page of my blog (as do all recent articles) and the post is actually quite a bit longer than what you see in the image. Just look at the topic and you can imagine why it's so lengthy. Quite a hefty topic.
Because of the length of the post, it winds up taking a majority of room on the front page of my blog (or second or third or...). I like the idea that a user can scroll through the front page, picking and choosing what they'd like to read when they land on the first page or they can read from most recent to oldest all in one go. I know when I read blogs, I often start at the top and scroll my way through them (I have a tendency to read most of the first page at least, just to get an idea of who I am reading and what their thoughts are). I also recognize that I am a little different than many people who use the internet on a regular basis. I'm not much of a scanner and prefer to find what I need and read the whole thing. I don't bounce around from point to point searching for the nuggets I want and need. I read the whole thing before realizing that Google lead me to the right or wrong place.
So I started toying with the idea of making things a little shorter and more to the point and allowing the reader to decide if they want to investigate further and read the whole story. Enter the more tag in Wordpress. By using this easily inserted tag, I can decide how much of a post I'd like to show the public on the main page of my blog (and the archives as well).
As you can see from the image on the right, the blog now only shows the title, first headline and first paragraph (there are actually six paragraphs and two headlines in the full blown post). It's a condensed version of the post allowing just enough so you know where I'm heading with the post, but not giving you everything. The "Read the rest of this entry" link at the bottom of the post allows a reader to click to learn more. They have the ability to choose whether they want more, need more, or even care about the topic at hand.
Of course, the danger is that when given the power, some people won't use it at all. Will they click the link? Or will they just see it as a nuisance barrier that they have to pass before reading and deciding if the article is worth it or not. In a world where we're competing for time and attention span, I wonder if it's a helpful or hurtful addition to my blog.
I'd love to hear from some consumers as well as agents who have employed this tag (or similar) on their blogs before. Did traffic go up? Did you receive more comments? Did your overall visits plummet? What happened that you feel may have been caused by your addition of a gateway to the post? Any suggestions, thoughts, ideas, or solutions would be appreciated. In the meantime, I'll just keep writing my posts the way I always have. Thanks everyone!
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