I have been asleep for the last 9 months! I recently added an "Articles by Label" section on the left hand side of my blog. I also added a "Search" box toward the bottom of the left column.
I was bothered by the fact that the only way to find articles was by the date. Worse, the "Articles by Date" index only shows one month at a time expanded. Sure, you can click on the months on the left, see the titles and then read an article, but I find many people don't go back through the older articles, because it's not as easy as it should be.
But Blogger allows you to add "labels" to each article, and then over on the left you can search by the different labels rather than just viewing my titles (some of which are probably too clever for my own good). This is similar to "Categories" used by some other blogger software.
I suspect it's been there from the beginning of my blog, but I overlooked it. I've added that feature to the blog; now I need to go back and see which labels make sense AND update the articles from the last nine months. I stopped adding labels at some point because I didn't see any value for readers, except when searching.
Now that I've enabled the feature, I'll make sure I add useful labels to all new articles and I hope you enjoy the results.
One thing I'm finding is most people haven't been with me since the beginning, and few go back and read the previous articles. Some send me private mail asking for specific information and I realize I wrote about that topic last year.
Sooo.... I'm adding labels/categories to all the previous articles over the next couple weeks, to make it easier to find the past articles that make sense. Use the "Articles by Label" index on the left (scroll down a little to see it), and/or a search box. I'm still deciding how I should organize the left side, so send me feedback if you have ideas.
Of course, you can currently use the "Articles by Month" section to see them all by date, but I want to make it easier. I'm also thinking about a "Greatest Hits" section, where there are a small set of the articles that get the most readers.
I'd also like some feedback on the length of my articles. Compared with most blogs, my articles are longer. (Even this started as a quick and dirty announcement; now it's long!)
- Is this a good thing?
- Should I be breaking an article into 3 or 4 parts to make them shorter?
Stats show people read more if the articles are shorter, but I'm thinking my audience wants depth. Again, I'd really like your gut feelings on this one.
Please add comments or send me private mail (DonBaarns AT hotmail.com). You have to edit the address to put it in the real format. I do it that way to reduce the spam bots from harvesting my e-mail address.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to
do so.
-Douglas Adams
6 comments:
Something like 'related articles' beneath every article would be great (dunno if this is possible within blogger, though).
Oh, and about article length, don't break them apart. The sole reason why a lot of websites break apart their articles is to show more ad impressions, and the reason a lot of blog posts are shorter is because they don't have much to say.
You'r posts are very readable, so keep it, or if you must, insert a few random pictures to soften things up ;)
Sam,
Great idea on the "Related Articles". In theory, once I get the labels organized correctly, if you finish one article, the labels at the bottom should reflect other articles that are related.
I never thought about the ad impressions, I just noticed their postings are much shorter than mine.
Shorter articles are often easier to write and edit. Behind the scenes I have at least 25 articles that are from 20 to 95% finished.
Sometimes I write something, but don't like the ending, or the examples are weak, or something just doesn't feel right. I put it in my draft articles folder, and cycle back to it later. The shorter the articles, the sooner they get published.
I totally appreciate the feedback. If anybody has similar or different thoughts, I'm all ears!
After having briefly glanced at the labels I have to say, I like it a lot.
I think it'll be great as soon as you have them all organized correctly.
Thanks for making the effort.
As for shorter articles, I can see why they'd be easier to write and edit and they'd probably even be easier to read.
That said, I really like the content of your articles and the lenght hasn't bothered me in the least bit.
Whatever you decide, I'm looking forward to your next post!
No problem with text length for well written and interesting articles on my part.
I've gone back and read your previous articles, but might be more fanatical about salsa than most.
Labels are good, I use them myself a lot at my blog. They are probably also very good for getting the search engines to index your blog more efficiently.
I knew I'd read something about the length of articles somewhere.
Steve Pavlina has a blog about personal development and in one of his posts is about how to build a high traffic website/blog:
http://tinyurl.com/dtyks
Strong content is universally valued. It’s hard work to create it, but in the long run it generates lots of long-term referral traffic. I’d rather write one article I’m really proud of than 25 smaller posts. It’s been my experience that the best articles I write will outperform all the forgettable little posts I’ve made. Quality is more important than quantity. Quantity without quality, however, is easier, which is one reason so many people use that strategy. Ultimately, however, the Internet already contains more quantity than any one of us can absorb in our lifetimes, but there will always be a place for good quality content that stands out from the crowd.
Thanks for the feedback. It's good to see others talking about writing longer articles.
I rarely start off writing a long article, I simply start with my title/concept, write an outline and fill in the blanks.
Then I edit them (and have someone else do the same) trying to cut them down.
But when I look back I see they are longer than most others. My only question is should I break those longer ones into X parts, providing the same content over more articles.
Thanks for the great reference, and your comments are appreciated!
Post a Comment