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
