RSS Reader or Website?

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“RSS Reader or Website?”

Where do you read your favorite blog posts?  No, I don’t mean on your laptop or your desktop and I’ve even heard posts are available on your phone!  Of course you have this blog and all your other favorites listed in your reader. But do you read the entire post in the reader or do you click through to the site? Some bloggers don’t give you that choice.  Some bloggers list just the title only while other bloggers list an excerpt of the post in the reader, still some others list the full post.

I would think you would have to have a great deal of confidence in your title to “hope” that people are going to click through to your post based solely on the title. For the blogs that list an excerpt only, you have to click through to the blog to continue reading the post. If, of course, the excerpt captures your interest enough to bother clicking through.  Then there are the bloggers that list the whole post in the reader.  You can still click through to the site of course.  Which do you prefer?

Title Only?

We recently discussed how and why Creative Titles Are Crucial. In the flurry of all your favorite blogs listed in your reader, even one as great as BloggerNewbie, posts can get lost in the shuffle. It happens.  If you list the title only in the reader your title darn well better be interesting enough to capture attention.  It has been my experience that titles aren’t necessarily the true sense of the post.  Readers might feel tricked or be resentful if they use their time to click through to your blog because of the title only to find out the title is not a true caption of the post.

Excerpt?

So after the creative title captures your attention, the excerpt or first paragraph needs to peak your curiosity so that you will want to click through to the website.  The excerpt is the “teaser” that makes your reader want to keep reading.  In order to keep reading, they need to click through to your site.

Full Post?

If you list your entire post in the reader, your visitors won’t need to click through to your site. Unless of course, they want to leave a comment!  Do you want them to click through?  Of course you want your readers to comment. The whole point of your blog is for people to read your post right?  Well most bloggers want their readers to comment and interact in the conversation.  Your content must be so compelling that your reader will have to click through to your blog so they can offer their opinion.

Reasons to click through

What reason would you want them to click through? There are plenty of other reasons you may want people to click through to your site.

• Being on the site creates community.  Community creates loyal readers.

• Your readers can easily see other comments from other readers.  They can interact with the author (you the blogger)  as well as the other readers.

• Often, there are areas of interest in the sidebars – links to contact you at various social networks, ads of course, products that you find helpful and recommend.
  

How do you list your posts in your reader? Do you list the title only, an excerpt or the whole post? What do you find are the advantages, the disadvantages?

Toodles – Blog Happy!

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“Strategic planning is worthless — unless there is first a strategic vision…”

- John Naisbitt

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