Monday, September 16, 2013

Polls: After the jump...

...break, that is.

So, like, you know how some bloggers' "Home" pages show abbreviated posts and you have to click on "Read more" (or similar) to, like, read more? As a reader, I've found that when I have to click for more content, I get mildly annoyed ('cause I'm lazy and try to do as little actual work as I can possibly get away with doing). I mean, if I'm really interested in the subject matter, clicking to read more doesn't faze me. But if I'm only slightly interested, I may just bugger off without reading on. Anyway, as a blogger, I never understood the point of this practice, but now I wonder...

...is the value of making readers click for content that you gain more accurate stats on blog traffic? With Google Analytics (which is free!), you can learn a lot about reader behavior on your site: ratio of returning to new visitors, how many folks "bounce" off your blog without actually reading anything, which posts have attracted the most readers, etc. Right now (except for this post), when you arrive at my home page, you can read the five most recent posts in their entirety without clicking any damned thing. But then, how do I know which of those five appealed to you? Or did they all? Did any? It seems to me that I'd obtain better feedback if folks had to click to get at what they want to read, which could help me focus my efforts into writing the kinds of posts mah peeps prefer and scrapping stuff they don't dig as much. On the other hand, will I lose readers if I make them "work" to read stuff?

What do y'all think? Please vote in the following polls, as readers and, if applicable, as bloggers. You're welcome to toss out any further pros and cons about these matters in the Comments section and, if you're so inclined, share this post via your social media of choice, so I can get as much feedback as possible. Thanks!

READERS: How do you feel about having to click to "read more" of a blog post? (Select all that apply.)

BLOGGERS: Is gaining better feedback on your content worth the risk of "losing" your readers? (Select all that apply.)


18 comments:

  1. Interesting thoughts, never bothered me, but do understand the reasoning. Although I don't think I have enough readers to really worry about it.

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  2. I don't really like the whole click to read more thingy, although I've never really analyzed why. I think it just seems messy somehow... I don't know if that makes any sense? I virtually never check my blog stats, so I'm really not being much help, am I?! Thinking about whether a post will be popular or not would kind of suck the fun out of blogging for me, but I hear people mentioning their blog stats all the time so I guess I'm just strange... as usual. ;)

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  3. I don't like the click-to-read more thing either. My clicking finger is tired, overworked, and is threatening to unionize with the thumb and hold out for more money. (Yes, it's way past my bedtime. lol) Have a great week, Mina!

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  4. I don't like 'read more' either. I've stopped following blogs with 'read more' and the dreaded CAPTCHA. I have too many blogs I follow to have to make that extra step. I do it for people/blogs I really love but I don't like it. As the meme says, 'Ain't nobody got time for that!'

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  5. I don't mind the "read more" clicking. That said, on my own blogs (which haven't been touched in nearly a year in one case; sigh), I show the whole frickin' post, just like you do. Primarily because I didn't give it a lot of thought when I set them up. I don't use Google Analytics so have no idea about my readers and am too lazy to change anything now anyway.

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  6. I don't like the "read more" thing in my blog reader, because I'm in my reader to read blogs I've specifically subscribed to.

    But on the website itself, I prefer it...as long as what appears on the main page has enough info to pull me in. A sentence or two probably won't make me click "read more" regardless of the information. At least give me a paragraph or two. But if I'm on a website and looking for something, I don't want to scroll through entire posts that fill up entire pages just to find that one article I'm looking for (because yesterday, I had to do that, and it irritated the everything out of me because the site had a couple of 5,000+ word posts I didn't want to see cluttering the page).

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  7. I don't do the read more thing. I'm not as interested in hits and visitors as I am comments.

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  8. I don't like it on my blog. I think I don't like the format. To me, a "read more" link isn't user-friendly. It's a little silly, but if you don't have a very long post, why use it? I mean...it's cool if you're building suspense...but meh. If I'm interested, I'll read more either way.

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  9. Gotta be honest here. I read because it's a way for me to decompress my day. I have formed really good relationships with many of the bloggers that have stuck with me over the last 3 years. I just write what I write. If they want to read they do. If not, that's okay with me.

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  10. I judge the success of my blog on the number of comments compared to views - simple stats that Blogger happily gives me without asking.

    When I was first blogging, I didn't realise I had to click some posts to see the entirety and couldn't work out why people were commenting on content I hadn't read lol!!

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  11. Human Mina,

    I was going to click on "read more", but decided I couldn't be bothered :)

    My human has been known to put the important parts of his posting in bold letters. That way folks can tell which parts are potentially of interest.

    Actually, don't worry about any of this stuff. I do know that the followers total is a load of crap, for instance. I also hate those sites where your comment is not published pending approval by the blog author. Well, excuse me.

    Pawsitive wishes,

    Penny the Jack Russell dog and modest internet superstar!

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  12. I don't like blogs that only have a line or two for each post and all the posts are the 'click to read more' variety, but I do use jump breaks on my blog so that a newcomer can get a feel for my topics without aggravating their carpel tunnel.

    What I do to get around the annoyance factor is not add the jump break until the post has been bumped down a post or two. Every couple of weeks, I'll go tweak all the posts but the top one.

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  13. Thanks for all the feedback and votes, folks; I really appreciate them! <3

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  14. I like simple. When there are too many steps before getting to the meat of the thing, I'm more likely to just go away. There is so much content out there that sorting through it all takes time. So why spent that precious bit of time clicking, clicking, and clicking when there is content that can be easily accessed elsewhere?

    Got here via Little Gothic Horrors...

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    Replies
    1. Oh, and I feel just as annoyed by "Word Verification." It makes me want to pull my hair (or someone else's) out ;-)

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    2. LOL, I feel exactly the same way about the word verification business. :-) Thanks for visiting, it's great to "meet" you!

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  15. I had this feature on my blog for a while, because I wanted my home page to show more available posts. However, I found that I got fewer hits from searches and fewer comments overall. I was also very bad at figuring out where to put the break. In the end, I decided it was too much bother for writers and readers, so I stopped doing it.

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C'mon, post a comment. All the cool kids do.