Comments on: Why You Should Change Your Blog to Show Excerpts on the Home Page

By: Case Study: How I Used Twitter to Generate 35,967 Extra Hits to my Site in Just 14 Days

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:04:12 +0000

[...] Why You Should Change Your Blog to Show Excerpts on the Home Page [...]

By: How I set up NaiveBlogger in super quick time » at Naive Blogger

How I set up NaiveBlogger in super quick time » at Naive Blogger — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:13:47 +0000

[...] using this plugin, which are best described on by Gyutae Park’s post on the subject on his Winning The Web [...]

By: Louis Liem

Louis Liem — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:58:11 +0000

I think I’ve got a different opinion on this one:
* Easier for readers to navigate
You don’t have to cut down posts to make readers easily skim the list. All you need to do is displaying the list of the most recent post or the most popular post’s title. Additionally, the post title itself should be made clear and describes the content to give the readers a picture of what behind the title.
* Increased pageviews = more revenue
I think this one depends on your blogging priority and how’s your readers’ opinion on blog monetizing.
* Reduced page size
You can achieve both faster page load and a better user experience using tag in WordPress. This way, readers won’t encounter a 150 words article behind the excerpted 100 words one and feel like wasting time clicking.
* More exposure for previous posts
You can also display previous posts by worpress hacking and there are even more options available than just displaying previous posts. You can display posts from 5 years ago if you want to. Just put their titles on the sidebar or under the header.

So, usually, I add tag for long posts and leave shorter posts in their full form.

By: Gyutae Park

Gyutae Park — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 03:30:57 +0000

Hey James,
One thing to note is that your visitors think differently than you do. It might be a pain for you to click through to the posts, but you know what each and every post contains since you’ve written them yourself. Your readers on the other hand may be new to your blog and not know what your posts contain. Giving them brief summaries and allowing them to scan your content will help to give your blog more exposure.

I also advise you to check your stats as that will be the definitive measure of whether or not to use excerpts.

By: Thomas Sinfield

Thomas Sinfield — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:11:23 +0000

I almost started doing it when I launched my new design, but then didn’t. However I really like the idea because it makes people click deeper into your blog.

By: James Mann

James Mann — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:47:05 +0000

I have gone back and forth on this issue and finally decided to give it a try. I personally find it a pain in the behind to click through to the full post. For that reason I switched back to showing the entire post on my main page.

I will admit that I didn’t look to see if anything changed in my stats I just found it annoying when I had to click through so I figured it most likely annoyed others as well.

By: Gyutae Park

Gyutae Park — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:17:35 +0000

Hey Frank,
Thanks for stopping by. I checked out optempo.com and it looks good. I especially like how your magazine-style theme features the latest article. Excerpts are working great as well.

By: Gyutae Park

Gyutae Park — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:15:53 +0000

Awesome. Let me know how it works out for you.

By: Frank C

Frank C — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:33:18 +0000

I switched to using a magazine style theme back in November. It’s worked out quite well for me.

I particularly like having a feature article continuing to get top front page billing while other, newer, articles of lesser importance are displayed underneath. It also allows me to have 12 articles plus the feature article up front which wouldn’t be practical with a standard blog layout.

By: Gyutae Park

Gyutae Park — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:55:02 +0000

Great, it looks good on your blog. I’m glad it works out for you as well.