Definitions

For the non-geeks:

• feed:
  Web-based content, provided in a stream that can be displayed in many forms.
• full post:
  The entire entry displayed together on one page, as you can see on this page.
• excerpt:
  A snippet of the beginning of a feed entry, usually a certain number of characters long. On the front page of this site, you can see excerpted functionality that is created by manually inserted a break in the beginning of each post.
• feed reader:
  An online or installed program designed to download content from multiple sources.

Full Post or Excerpt?

If you subscribe to this feed using one of the links on the right, you’ll notice that you will always get the full post with your subscription. I use the excerpt function in WordPress for display purposes on the front of this site, but I don’t make people click through to read the rest if they are subscribing in a reader or through e-mail. Why? Well, the simple truth is that I find the practice annoying, and I’d rather provide value than annoy my readers. Consider this: I have, on more than one occasion, refreshed all of my subscribed feeds in my NewsFire feedreader while connected to the internet, and tried to read them offline on BART or in an airport. Every excerpt-only feed didn’t get read because I had free time to read, and yet I couldn’t get the whole post. If this happens enough, I’d probably just delete that feed out of my reader and stop bothering with it.

Need more concrete reasons? How about these:

• Excerpts don’t encourage clickthrough.
  According to Feedburner, excerpts do not drive higher click-throughs. And if you couple that with my feed-deleting annoyance, you’re actually losing readers.
• You don’t need the clickthroughs.
  If your content is advertising-driven, just monetize your feed. Feedburner now supports the AdSense CPC model through their ad network along with their original CPM model, and any traditional ad sales that can be made through a static site can be made through your feed.
• Bandwidth is endless.
  I’ve heard someone argue against full feeds because they say it takes up too much bandwidth. Seriously? It’s text, people! Even your feed with your ad in it takes up less bandwidth than your website, and high speed connections are a business standard.
• Alexa doesn’t matter.
  My other favorite is that decreasing your page views by putting the full post in the feed will drop your Alexa ranking when no one clicks through. Trust me, no one takes Alexa seriously anyway—view your results with a grain of salt.
• Duplicate content sucks.
  I hate searching for something on Google, clicking on a link, and then finding some blog excerpt with a link to the original post. People try to do that to this site all the time, and the pingback off me. It’s a waste of everyone’s time, so don’t do it.

In summary, writing is really about providing value, and including the full post in the feed increases that value to the reader. Value is what builds trust and strong readership, not clickthrough gimmicks. When you work on great content and building relationships, your subscriber levels will build organically along with your inbound links (and therefore your web traffic). So if you want to build trust and readership, put the full posts in your feed!

Feeds as Social Media

I have been using NewsFire for Max OS X for a while now, but I was recently turned on to Google Reader. While NewsFire (and other standalone-type feed applications) has the ability to let me download the feeds and read them offline, using an online program like Google Reader does have the added benefit of social networking. For example, I created a page in Google Reader with my favorite feeds, and then chose to share certain articles via a link on this site. (You can also see those results here.) As a content provider, if you can get influencers to share your articles on their reader pages, they can then spread your content around for you, ads and all!

Additional Resources

• Save Time with Subscriptions
• Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
• Burning Questions from Feedburner

To start off, I would like to discuss why it is important to keep your site fresh. I read somewhere that comparing "web years" to "calendar years" is a little like comparing "dog years" to "human years". That is, for every 1 year on your calendar, the web leaps through 7 years. Considering this, you can imagine the kinds of problems that stale content can make. For example:

• Visitors remember your content, and when it doesn’t change, they might assume business is not booming. A booming business has sales, promotions, or seasonal changes. A stale business lists the same out-of-stock items on their site for months.
• Search engines don’t like stagnated sites. Mr Googlebot is only coming back if you have something new for him to see!
• Your competition is not resting on being "good enough". If you are, they will eventually pass you by.
• Not updating your site is a little like still having your Christmas lights up in June – people start to wonder about you. The same goes with site errors, mistakes, or typos that go untouched for a very long time. This also creates an atmosphere where your professionalism is questioned, and this is not good for business. Consumer confidence is what makes sales!

Now that you know why you should keep your site updated and fresh, here are five ideas on how you can go about doing that:

• Use CSS and new graphics to give your site a facelift.
  To see what CSS can do for your site, check out CSS Zen Garden. This site is essentially the same HTML file, over and over again. What changes is the face of the page, the CSS file. When you design your site using CSS, you can quickly change your graphics to match the season, a sale, or a holiday. It gives the customer the idea that you are offering something new and exciting. Not ready for a full change? Then try …
• Change a few graphics.
  Google is one of the best examples of this technique – they change their logos for whatever holiday they feel like celebrating. (You can see an archive of their past logos here.) Another example is a client of ours that had a large image on the front of their original web site (made by another developer). We broke it up, using 3 smaller graphics on the left side – 1 of which lists the specials for the week, and the other 2 point to current promotions. These little widgets can be easily swapped with each promotional drive.
• Update your content.
  If you are happy with your current listing and rank on Google, then keep your keywords and spice up your text. If your listing needs some work, create a keyword list and use that to make some new content. Remember: keywords aside, make sure that your text and descriptions make sense in a normal English context! A high Google ranking will mean nothing if your content isn’t engaging enough to make visitors convert. Take a hard look at your content in this process. When is the last time you did some editing? Has your business direction, product offerings, or marketing plan changed since then? What can you do to make your content more engaging or inviting?
• Shift the site’s focus through home page and banner changes.
  Use graphics and language on your home page that will direct your traffic to a part of the site they may have not seen or used before. You can use this technique to feature certain products, promote new services, or announce new events. One note: the idea is to pick a few items, not list everything including the kitchen sink. This concept ties in nicely with your marketing plan, as you should decide your traffic and promotional goals well in advance of the actual event.
• Add new features.
  What are your customers interested in? Would they like to discuss your product with other users? Would they like to know additional ways to use your products? Are they interested in a newsletter with tips involving similar topics? If you don’t know, ask! Most customers would consider it excellent customer service if you were to email them, ask about their results with the product, and ask them what you could have done or added to make the experience better.

I can not stress enough that the first place to start in all of this is your marketing plan. If you need help with this, help is available. Without your marketing plan, which should be written in terms of both what and when, you really are just throwing yourself out there and hoping something accidentally sticks.

I hope this article has given you the inspiration to get that marketing plan going and make some changes in your website. Stay tuned! Our next article will feature some modules that you can use keep your content fresh as well!