Tag: Blogs

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How Many Blog Posts Should You Show on Your Front Page?

Yes that is right Nancy McCord is still in Russia. This is one of her previously published articles. She is back on August 16.

This is an interesting topic for blog owners and I have changed my own mind on this point over the years.

It used to be with most of our client blogs on Blogger, we set the blog to show 30 posts on the home page. Now with most of our clients using WordPress and many more home page options, we recommend having five blog posts on your home page.

I have seen some blogs where they just show one blog post on the home page or some that show three, but I personally like showing five blog posts.

If you have WordPress, you can even select to have a static page for the entry page of your blog and I have even seen some blogs where they simply show categories and snippets of posts like a magazine portal page. There are many flavors of what you should use for your home page.

Darren at ProBlogger did a review of this topic and I thought that the comments written in by other bloggers were very good. Here is the vote on the number in a nutshell.

Two Posts 1 Blogger

Three Posts 4 Bloggers

Four Posts 3 Bloggers

Five Posts 13 Bloggers

Six Posts 3 Bloggers

Seven Posts 1 Blogger

Ten Posts 6 Bloggers

More Than 10 Posts 2 Bloggers (1 had snippets the other had 35 posts)

So the consensus seems to match my thoughts five blog posts on the home page seems about right.

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Professional Bloggers Love WordPress

As professional blog writers, my team writes over 100 blog posts each week. We’ve used all the blogging platforms and even custom applications. Hands down my team prefers to use WordPress.

Our team members don’t like these platforms:

Movable Type
When we get a blog project that is using Movable Type, we all groan. This platform does not allow for pending and draft posts, has a very quirky publishing interface, and has a very strange HTML mutant link and writing interface. Typically blog writers are writers first and not usually HTML savvy so to add link or tag syntax can be highly confusing.

Blogspot
This used to be the platform that most of our blogs were done on back in 2002 and 2003 but as of 2010 not a single one of our clients is on Blogger or Blogspot. They have all moved to WordPress. Although you can add tags, you cannot sort posts into categories. Additionally the template selections are archaic and do not even allow three column blogs.

HubSpot
This is another platform when we get a client using this we groan. Although it is not as bad as Movable Type, the inability to see blog posts in a list by date and quick editing features for tags and categories make this a cumbersome choice to use.

The Best is WordPress!
Here’s why we love WordPress:

  • Wonderful easy to install plug-ins that build SEO benefits into each blog post.
  • Ability to choose tags PLUS categories to sort your blog posts into for easy navigation.
  • Integrated search engine.
  • Once click software upgrade and plug-in update.
  • Excellent and rock solid publishing on future dates.
  • Ability to set a post as pending or draft – they are different in our minds.
  • Running word count that resides at the bottom left of the blog entry field screen.
  • Outstanding template selections with many that are free downloads.

If you are trying to decide which blog platform to use for your blog. Use the one that professional bloggers like us love – WordPress!

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Want to Build Blog Readership? Consistency is Key!

If you want to build readership of your blog, consistency is key, but that doesn’t just mean posting on the same days, but at the same time, with the same quality, and on your core topics.

I have learned this from personal experience. There is absolutely nothing worse than building up a reader base and then due to your own inconsistency losing it. I had this happen in 2008. I had a number of writer related personnel issues. I had to step in and write consistently at the last moment for a number of client blogs. When you blog for other people, you can get tapped out and simply not want to or have time to write for your own blog.

I saw on my own blog, over a several month period, my traffic go from 40% of all visitors reading my blog to under 10%. It took me over one full year to rebuild my readership with consistent blogging three days a week. It was really tough to keep the momentum up to rebuild what I had lost. I have learned that to not blog is not an option for my own business.

For me, I blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My posts are published at 5:30 am and are consistently on-topic for what my readers are interested in knowing more about. The payoff has been huge. My RSS subscriber base is now over 220 readers and my website traffic has nearly doubled this year alone.

Blogging can be hard work to always be at the top of your game, but when you stop or get sporadic you can lose it all! If you need help staying consistent with your blog consider our blog writing services. You don’t want to have to rebuild your readership, as I did, if you can simply get someone to step in and help out when you need it.

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Blog Comments – Why You Should Allow Them

I think a blog without comments is like having a BLT sandwich without the bacon or tomato. Comments on a blog show that an active community is watching and interacting. When you disable comments on your blog I personally feel that you are missing out on important interaction with your readers.

That being said, it is important to know that I allow commenting on my blog, but I do moderate comments. I don’t post comments that are blatant advertisements for other people’s business, and I do not allow search engine “follow” links on my comments until you have posted comments a certain number of times. Once you comment to hit my threshold, comments on my blog that you leave will be followed by search engines.

I use a WordPress plug-in called Lucia’s Linky Love to control the follow nofollow attribute on links left in comments on my blog and in the commenter’s signature block. I have found that by allowing comments, within my parameters, that I have increased the amount of commenting on my blog and have actually quadrupled my RSS feed subscription readership.

If you are so tightly controlling interaction on your blog by either not allowing comments or deleting any comments don’t match your personal point of view, I feel like you lose what a blog is all about. In any one community not everyone will agree on everything, but if you as a business owner allow interaction between yourself and even between commenters you allow for an overall “richer” experience for every blog visitor.