When people think about blogging they tend to think about the writing aspects of blogging. There are others things to think of as well, such as the browsing experience for the reader. From a design perspective, most content management systems have a library of themes a writer can use and there is always the option of purchasing a theme. Let’s look at a common problem with themes: lack of using excerpts.

Does Your Theme Cut Content Off?

If you have a blog take a look at your front page. Do your entries stop after X number of words or characters? If they don’t, you might want to read this article about optimizing your site. If your entries are cut off after X number of words or characters, does the cut off happen when the reader will have a good indication of what the article is about? Is the formatting for the article maintained?

What normally happens is the writer installs the theme and doesn’t think about when the text is cut off. Often the text showing doesn’t match the title of the article. For example, if someone tells a story as an example to use in the article later the story might distract the reader from clicking even if the title is interesting.

Why Write Excerpts?

Take a look at the front page on my site. With this theme I have two options on how to create excerpts. I can use the more tag and it will cut off the text where I want it to or I can write an excerpt. I opted to write an excerpt so the text on the front page and in search results are different than in the actual article. For me this works because I write the excerpt first and the pre-written excerpt helps me stay on topic while writing my entry.

The dual benefit of cleaning up my front page by using excerpts: I cleaned up my search results as well. Readers searching my site will have a easier time finding the material they want. Another extra added benefit is that I will not receive the duplicate content penalty from Google.

Let’s Keep it Real….

I didn’t always use excerpts on my site. I just started using them. Did I go back through hundreds of articles to write excerpts? No. Maybe when I’m doing something tedious on my computer (like flying from one area to another in World of Warcraft) I’ll clean the past entries up and write excerpts. Instead what I did was make a couple pages excerpt friendly and made the conscious effort to do better in the future.

Let me be clear here: if you set a goal too high for yourself the “chore” will become too much of a burden and you will not enjoy your blog/site as much. Your lack of enjoyment will show in your writing eventually. Take small steps even if it is one entry at a time.

Objectivity is Important

Being able to detach yourself emotionally from your writing and take an objective look at your site is crucial to understanding the reader’s browsing experience. If you are unable to do it, ask a neutral person their thoughts. Someone that will not feel guilty about telling you something potentially negative about your blog/site.

If you see things on your own site that you do not tolerate while browsing the internet, change it.