Yesterday I switched my RSS feed settings from “summary” to “full text”. That means, if you’re subscribed to my RSS feed, that you will now be able to read my entire posts within your RSS reader, compared to before, where you’d only be able to read a summary, usually the first few hundred characters or something.
Pros for you, the reader:
- You can now read the entire posts without having to visit my site.
- You can determine, without visiting my site, if you’d like to comment on the post.
Cons for you, the reader:
- You don’t get to see what other commentators might have said about my post, as those are not included in the RSS feed.
- You will not see the “Similar Posts”-section where you might find some other interesting posts.
- You will miss out on my (banner) ads and the great offers that I’m advertising 🙂
Pros for me, TechPatio:
- I might get more readers because it’s easier to read my full posts directly in the RSS reader application.
Cons for me, TechPatio:
- Less visits/pageviews.
- Less ad impressions and less clicks on the ads, as ads are not displayed in the RSS feed.
As you can see, not many pros in it for me – or maybe I have missed something, what do you think?
For now I’ll try to stick with “full text”. Most of the RSS feeds that I’m subscribing to, also offers full text – I think it’s the standard setting for WordPress, so that might be the reason.
If it turns out that my visits/pageviews drops because of this, then I will probably go back to “summary” again.
What do you prefer – and why? And if you have a blog, what do you use?
As a blogger I would say summary because that way they can read short version and then visit your web site for the full blog post. As a visitor I have no preference. Greg Ellison
.-= Greg Ellison´s last blog ..The Design Of Your New Site =-.
As a blogger, I agree 🙂 But Ricky (below) has a point though…
As a blogger you must concentrate on satisfaction of your readers. I prefer full RSS feed over summary, atleast it makes the readers task easy (less clicks). But that is my own opinion.
You are, of course, correct. I’m excited to see how the “full text” switch affects my stats – like visits/pageviews, feed subscribers/reach/clicks etc.
If I were to promote affiliate products in my posts, then having them in full text would make a lot of sense – but since I do that very rare, and pretty much the only source of income is clicks and purchases through my banner ads, I need the visitors to come to my site 🙂
I do the full text right now – because my blog is so new I’m more concerned about having readers get really interested in my site and read my stuff than just giving the small teasers right now trying to get them to click for more. I think a lot of the big bloggers are doing the full text feeds, but of course they do load it up with ads and affiliate links. You could do that too, if you want! I’ll be right in the middle of reading a post by an A-list blogger and there’s a big ad blocking my way before I can read the end. I guess I have to click on their site if they say there’s a poll or a video to be seen, but that’s about it if I’m not going to comment.
.-= Christie´s last blog ..GoDaddy’s Twitter integration helps you with branding =-.
I think that’s why the big bloggers do it, because they might often be more interested in people clicking products within their posts, rather than sidebar ads etc.
As a blogger and in order to increase the traffic to my blog I prefer to give a snippet, I also prefer to read only a snippet also in my feedly feed reader.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Hell Week a Week of Rants =-.
As a reader I prefer to read full text. If I have something to say about it I’ll visit your site and give you a comment. Sure you will probably lose some pageviews and unique visitors but there have been many times when I simply just removed a RSS-feed since I only got a small summary in my Reader.
.-= Stefan´s last blog ..How to Get Free Content From Experts =-.
Thanks for your input Stefan – and for visiting techpatio.com 🙂
So far I’m not really seeing any chance in feed stats or pageviews that I can directly relate to changing RSS feeds setup.