Blog Front Page: Full posts or Teasers?

[Yimto]

Hey Guys,

Wanted to get your opinion on something.

On a blog's front page, do you think it's better to have a teaser with a read more button, or just a full post?

There are pros and cons to both that I've heard...

Teasers may encourage more comments from people who actually click through to read, but then again less people will do that.

Full pages make sure all your content is at least "seen" by visitors, but there could be SEO and duplicate content issues on your site...

I use Teasers right now, but I'm wondering if it's the right move. I see the majority of other blogs using full posts, and I wonder if people read those more.

What have you used and what are your experiences? What do you prefer when reading other people's blogs? What do you think I should use?

Thanks!

[skleiner]

I was going to put teasers to see the difference, but low and behold.. I can't figure out how to! I too read that more people will click the read more.

[skleiner]

I prefer the entire article at once myself

[MarketLeverage]

I prefer the full post myself. I want to be able to go your blog and read the entire post without having to go to another page to read the whole article.

[kimd1]

I prefer the whole article myself and most times when I read someone else's blog with "read more", I don't usually click on it.

[Yimto]

Thanks so far guys, keep the replies coming!

By the way, I searched a lot about this subject, and as far as I could see there was virtually no information about this subject.

So, to all blog about blogging bloggers, this could be a great topic for a future post Make sure to post it here too!

[Ferox]

I use Teasers most of hte time, unless the post is a short 'dear readers' type of post. I have my reasons though.

1. My posts tend to be very long, and they stretch out hte page far too much if I have the full article posted in one hit.
2. I occasionally have photographs of organs or surgery, which not everyone wants to see, especially without warning. By posting a teaser, I can include a warning about the surgical photos before the 'show me more' link, which is only being fair to my readers and casual browsers. Nobody likes being confronted with a piece of intestine without warning.
3. I think it stops other sites from copying the whole post automatically, which is good for me.
4. It just looks so much neater
5. It helps me assess whether or not people are reading when I look at my statistics. If a visitor spends ten minutes on my site, how do I know if they're readong or just walked away from the computer unless they've visited a second page?

[The University Kid]

Full post is better, I think. Teasers are great, but most visitors are lazy... unless you're really, really good at writing catchy teasers, they're just not going to.

[netentre]

I use full posts most of the time, unless the post is longer than, say 500 words. One more reason I personally use teasers, is when I want to do just that, like in my Thinking outside the box post.

Anyway, I noticed that people who want to comment or participate in any way, would do so anyway.
The benefit of having a full post on your front page is that it doesn't require any further action... Remember, readers are NOT lazy, but have little time. An average blogger would go through numerous blogs and would have a happy trigger (back button) finger. :icon_twisted:

But, as a bonus and further headache, I've got a return question to you:
Do you use full or summary RSS feed?

Which is, IMO, a much more important dilemma...

[Vikingblogger]

Originally Posted by netentre

Do you use full or summary RSS feed?

Which is, IMO, a much more important dilemma...

Here:
RSS Thoughts- Full or Short

And my post about it:
Do You Display the Whole Article In The RSS Feed? | VikingBlogger.com