Tomorrow is the last day of August, so the post scheduled for tomorrow is New Reads for August.
It has been a massive month of adding blogs to the feedreader. The list I will be posting tomorrow is very long, over 100 new blogs.
So I’ve probably been to over 600 blogs this month – for every one I added, there were at least 5 I did not add. Not just anyone gets to jump into my feed reader.
When I added a new blog –
I have visited that blog and read back several pages – at least 20 posts. And let me tell you, some blogs do not make this an easy thing to do.
Using read more tags means I have to open up a bunch of tabs to read the posts. If I already have a bunch of tabs open, I’m probably not going to bother unless the snippets are enticing enough to make me open that blog in a new window and tab up a storm. Sorry. Those read more tags made it too hard for me to get to know that blogger. :(
I read back –
– liked what I saw, then added that blog to my feed reader.
And let me tell you, sometimes that doesn’t work out so well. Some blogs don’t have a feed associated with them! I occasionally have to do all kinds of tinkering to be able to get a feed for some blogs. Sometimes my intent to add a blog ends up with me giving up. Sometimes I’ll send an email to the blogger to mention what kind of issue I had. Sometimes not. It depends on how much time I have.
So, if you are a blogger reading this!
Here is a thought – use a feed reader to read blogs because it makes things quicker and easier when it comes to following the blogs you love – add your own feed to the feed reader so you can keep an eye on your posts and make sure it is showing up how you intended.
Don’t use a feed reader? Need One?
Last month Zazzy suggested Inoreader. Here is a great post on how to use Inoreader. They also seem to have forums and support available.
Some blogs use a partial feed.
That might end our relationship right there. I read over 400 – possibly close to 500 – blogs via my feed reader. If you are going to make me click through to your blog for every post in full, I’m probably out. Even if you are an amazing writer. Even if I really love what I saw on your blog.
If I *really* love your content –
As in I can’t live without it – and you use a partial feed, I recently found a way to get around it.
But this has some serious drawbacks –
– it is unreliable – I’ve been testing it by leaving the partial feeds in my reader next to the full feed and presently none of the full feed posts have arrived while partial ones have
– if people are using this, it means they are not subscribed to *your* blog, they are subscribed to a third party service
– it takes away your ability to get stats on your feed if people are not using your feed
Not to mention –
Do you really want to make your readers jump through hoops to get your content? I’m not a performing dog. :) If I like your post and I have the time, I’m going to click through and comment.
If you give me a tiny snippet and what is there does not seem interesting, I’m not clicking through. Sorry. :( A partial feed can only be a lose-lose when you are a blogger who wants people to read your writing. You are frustrating your readers, and that content you worked so hard on is likely going to be left unread.
You do not need to use a partial feed to get me to your blog – in fact it is more likely to turn me off as a reader from the get-go.
If the reason you are using a partial feed is because you are worried about content scraping, there are things you can do that do not involve a partial feed – like these –
7 Tips and Tools to Stop Content Thieves in their Tracks
Beginner’s Guide to Preventing Blog Content Scraping in WordPress
Note this quote from the Beginners Guide article –
Note: We have full feed because we care more about our RSS readers than the spammers.
Blog Design –
There are some terrible blog designs out there in the wilderness. Egads, people. Some of the stuff I saw was painful to my eyebulbs. But I will not like to re-invent the wheel, I wrote about this some time back and I have gone through and updated the post, removing dead links and slightly changing the text – Blog Design – Open Your Eyes.
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