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1:19 pm
April 20, 2011
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The Wall Street Chalkboard (Jeff)
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I know its really up to one's personal preference, but are excerpts on the home page better than featuring full posts? Currently my home page contains full posts, but more and more I'm noticing pf blogs with excerpts. What do you guys think?
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1:24 pm
April 20, 2011
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Pat S
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Interesting question. I've wondered the same myself.
Eventually, I settled on full posts for my home page as it is a one person blog. I find that most of the sites that feature excerpts have frequently updated content or are multiple author blogs. Looking at the more successful one person sites, it seems that is the trend, although I'm sure there are exceptions.
Anyone disagree?
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1:29 pm
April 20, 2011
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Beating The Index
| | Montreal, Canada | |
| Member | posts 180 |
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Jeff,
I settled for excerpts on the home page except for the latest post. This way you force the reader to spend more time on your site and your site is faster to load when the home page is hit.
My 2 cents,
Mich
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1:42 pm
April 20, 2011
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moneycone
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I prefer excerpts since that gives the user time to scan and pick one that he/she's interested in.
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6:40 pm
April 20, 2011
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Derek@LifeAndMyFinances
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I prefer exerpts for the same reason as MoneyCone. It allows the reader more options when they hit your site. If they don't like the first title of a full page post, then they'll most likely leave. But, if they see 4 other titles, there is a greater chance that one of them will peak their interest! :)
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7:14 pm
April 20, 2011
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sooverthis
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I only use excerpts when the post is really long. When I visit blogs, I get really annoyed when everything on the page is available "after the jump." Just my opinion!
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7:23 pm
April 20, 2011
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The Wall Street Chalkboard (Jeff)
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| Member | posts 85 |
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Interesting opinions. I think I may do a mix of excerpts and full articles. Maybe 2 full posts and the rest excerpts.
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7:58 pm
April 20, 2011
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The College Investor
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If my posts go on beyond about 500 words, then I use an excerpt. I think I have only done it on about 10 posts.
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8:59 pm
April 20, 2011
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Suba @ Wealth Informatics
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Mine is all excerpts but the reason is my posts are ALL around 1000 words or longer. If I have the full post in the main page, I can have just one post. This way I could offer a couple of posts for them to choose. I debated this as well, because like sooverdebt, I don't like jumping just to read the post. Ideally I would like the latest post to be full and everything else excerpt. But when I tried it, I didn't like the long wall of text in my front page.
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2:50 am
April 21, 2011
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Todd @ Todd's Wanderings
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I use excerpts. I try to keep my homepage clean and to give the reader options to pick from on how they want to dig into my site. Plus I use a lot of photography and my posts tend to be on the longer side. I treat my homepage as the landing page to capture the readers interest (hopefully successfully).
I'm actually in a site redesign now to add more static features to the homepage, and for the "recent posts" to be excepts that are the only things that change. It will be interesting to see if I can capture more interest this way.
It is difficult to please everyone who reaches your site. But when I visit a News site I don't feel let down that all the news is not in full content on the homepage. This would make it impossible to sift through to something that I was interested in.
Just my 2 cents (in euro).
Todd
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5:34 am
April 21, 2011
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Jackie
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As a reader I hate excerpts, because I'm usually reading on my phone and it's more clicking and waiting. And I get sidetracked a lot and sometimes miss the remaining part of the article. As a blogger I prefer excerpts because it gives people more options to scan through, and people seem to read more articles. So I've compromised by having the current day's post be a full article, and days prior to that be excerpts.
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7:58 am
April 21, 2011
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Jason@LiveRealNow
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Other than my first visit, I'm usually reading by RSS. If that's excerpted, I'll almost always unsubscribe.
On-site, I still prefer the full post, but excerpts don't chase me away.
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8:26 am
April 21, 2011
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The Single Saver
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I use excepts on any f my posts that are more than a paragraph long (i.e, my short daily tips don't get excerpted). This allows the readers to scan more content on the page to choose to read what interests them.
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9:20 am
April 21, 2011
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Eric – PersonalProfitability.com
| | Portland, OR | |
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I have the lastest two posts as full posts and then excerpts.
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10:28 am
April 21, 2011
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Khaleef @ KNS Financial
| | Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet | |
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NarrowBridge said:
I have the lastest two posts as full posts and then excerpts.
This is how I have my sites set up as well.
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7:49 am
April 22, 2011
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Jeffrey Trull
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I like the excerpts better, personally. I think when you have lots of full length posts on the front page, it creates a giant page that's difficult to navigate. If you use excerpts, it's a lot easier for visitors to see a few posts without having to scroll like crazy.
Having excerpts on the front could also be useful for analytics. Instead of just hanging out on your front page and reading a post, you could have a better idea what posts are getting read and are more popular.
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3:45 pm
April 22, 2011
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LaTisha @YoungFinances
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Excerpts are better for tracking the popularity of articles. Also they will help decrease your bounce rate since it will take at least one click to get to the post.
But I would suggest full RSS feeds with no excerpts. Because as Jackie mentioned many readers are on phones or other mobile devices and waiting for an RSS feed to load is enough to make people not want to come back.
In the end, you just have to put yourself in the place of your reader and think about what they might not like. You can base this on what you like or take a survey of your readers.
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1:43 am
April 23, 2011
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Buy Like Buffett
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Excerpts are better because you can list more content and readers will read the full post if interested.
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3:21 pm
April 25, 2011
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The Passive Income Earner
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I have excerpts except for my main post and my RSS. I also dislike excerpts in RSS …
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6:43 pm
April 25, 2011
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My Personal Finance Journey
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I used excerpts for a while, and no one seemed to mind. I have since switched back just to minimize the number of clicks people have to make on my page.
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