3 ways that readers click onto a post in a blog
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Clarifying right now: This is not about SEO. It is about blog aesthetics. The question here will help me decide whether I want to stay with 2010 or return to Bueno.
Has it been ascertained which is the way that most posts/articles are first seen and opened? Of the three below, which is the one that brings in the most readers to a post?
1) By clicking onto a blog’s Home Page and going through the posts
2) By Googling a topic and clicking onto a link which takes them to a post in a blog
3) By clicking onto a link sent to them in email.-LK
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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2 by FAR. 1 a distant second. 3 is so rare as to be virtually not a factor at all, unless you send out email newsletters with links to your blog in them on a regular basis. Hardly anyone clicks on a link in an email signature, but they DO note them for future reference.
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Raincoaster: Thank you. I am going to assume that your answer is accurate. It sounds accurate to me, and being so, then I think I am better off with 2010 using the Featured Images which makes the header change to match the post, as opposed to Bueno, who always has the same header and has a Featured Image under the post title, but smaller and competing with the text post below.
Again, thank you.
-LK -
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Thanks. The answer reflects my experience since 2002 across six different platforms. I haven’t really looked at the new themes, but would caution you against relying on theme for additional googlejuice. Constantly changing headers is a good way to alienate regular readers. They really, really don’t like it.
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Raincoaster, I think that my regular readers (I know who some of them are) are ok with it or like it. I might have lost readers who prefer the same landscape and some sense of permanence, but it is in my nature to try new things. I have looked carefully at all of the new themes, given them all a fair shot (at least mentally). Each one has something to like and something which gives me pause.
The reason why 2010 is good for me is that whereas my header stays the same, it is the same for only those who come straight to my blog, which you earlier said was a small percentage of people.
For those who Google something and click onto a link and get to my blog, then they are seeing what I want them to see: An image which matches the post. Then, if they want to click the header and see more of the blog they end up seeing my brand new Pesky Emotional Republican humorous header — the first humorous header I have ever had for this blog.
It took me a while to figure all this out. I just came from Inuit Types, but the difficulty friends had in reading the sidebar (white serifed font on black field) and the problems I had with the Featured Header made me open to change out of it.
I liked Bueno a lot. I also stuck with Vigilance a lot, and really stuck with Depo for a long time, but I think that the combined wisdom of all the WordPress gurus in choosing 2012 is not to be ignored. This group leaves the rest of the blog platforms so in the dust that they need a cough mask.
-LK
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Just to note themes have nothing to do with how someone lands on your blog the theme only covers the appearance aspect…
-sk
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Slkbones said:
Just to note themes have nothing to do with how someone lands on your blog the theme only covers the appearance aspect…
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Slikbonex, yes, I knew that,except that I read that some themes make it easier for SEO to happen, due to the placement of tags etc. Someone wrote that about Vigilance — that it was good for SEO. Those things I have no way of kmowing.But my question had nothing to do with themes and traffic. It was about what people see if they go straight to my blog as opposed to what they see if they click onto a Googled item and then see the POST, as opposed to MY BLOG HOMEPAGE.
I wanted people to see the Featured Image along with the post in the heading because the two would match.
Although to tell you the truth, I also gave a lot of thought to whether i wanted people to click on a term in Google, and then click onto that term, and get to my blog, and see my HomePage header rather than the picture that accompanies the post.
It’s like a seesaw for me sometimes. I research until my eyeballs fall off my face, and I make a decision, and later I re-think it and conclude something else. But that’s the fun of blogging.
-LK
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Lorna, what you’re reading about themes and SEO is basically related to WordPress.ORG blogs, not WordPress.COM blogs. Forget it. You’re over-researching.
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Well, that research was somebody on this WordPress.com writing it as so and pertaining to the Vigilance theme. That is what made me give a good look at Vigilance. It was someone who was using the Vigilance theme.
-LK
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I wanted people to see the Featured Image along with the post in the heading because the two would match.
Do you own the copyright for the featured image, or do you have the prior permission of the copyright holder to use the image in the size you are posting? Fair Use has it’s limitations and that ought to be kept in mind. If you are using images derived from media sources then do be aware that they take copyright very seriously, and if you are using an image that is larger that 150 pixels by 150 pixels you may be exceeding the limitations of Fair Use.
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Lorna, what you’re reading about themes and SEO is basically related to WordPress.ORG blogs, not WordPress.COM blogs. Forget it. You’re over-researching.
I agree with raincoaster on this. Remember that we cannot use JavaScript on wordpress.com blogs. http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/ and note that this is a boon when it comes to SEO. We cannot edit templates underlying our themes in wordpress.COM blogs. Only Staff can and every edit they make effects all of those using the same theme. Consequently re: templates only Staff can make edits that effect SEO in regard to theme structure and functionality and make sure it validates.
The following advice is for those with wordpress.ORG installs. In general the the recommendation is to use a theme that loads content before sidebars and the themes that accomplish this tend to be 2 column themes with one righthand sidebar.
JavaScript files load differently than other HTML elements. While HTML is loading, the rest of the page continues to download. But in the case of JavaScript the element must completely load before the rest of the page can continue. To counter this problem, place all JavaScript files at the end of a document.
In general reduce the amount of javascript running on your blog; put all javascript at the bottom of your blog; and if you have third party javascript and links in your sidebar, then put them in at the bottom of the sidebar. For those with wordpress.ORG installs. there’s a WP plugin called “JavaScript To Footer” that can do this. Many optimized themes do this and if you choose a 2 column theme with right sidebar, it is automatically done.
You can use CSS to improve your website’s load time. With your styles in an external .CSS file, the browser can cache all the formatting and stylizing for your pages instead of having to read each and every single tag all over again. This reduces lengthy tags and replaces them with smaller class styles instead. Combine your background images into a single image and use the CSS background-image and background-position properties to display the desired image segment. If you add any custom CSS to your blog, make sure it validates.
As slikbonez said above:
Just to note themes have nothing to do with how someone lands on your blog the theme only covers the appearance aspect…
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I repeat: This was never for me an issue of SEO. I said it several times. SEO is not an issue for me.
Look at the very top of this page at my first sentence. It says:
Clarifying right now: This is not about SEO. It is about blog aesthetics. The question here will help me decide whether I want to stay with 2010 or return to Bueno.Please, I am not interested in SEO.
-LK
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One more clarification for the last time:
I wanted to know whether people would see my real header for my homepage or the header for a post with a featured image. That is why I asked the question that I asked. My question is up there to see.
When Raincoaster told me that most of the hits come from Googled items, I then decided that I wanted 2010, because with 2010, a person Googling a word and getting the page with that word will see the Featured Image. This is what I wanted the person to see: I wanted the reader to see a headline that matches the article.
As I said in the very first sentence of the very first post: This is not about SEO.
Raincoaster gave me the answer in the second post and we continued writing because she was thoughtful and gave me some advice and I replied to her kind advice.For me the topic is closed.
-LK
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