[gonzogone]

So, I'm trying to clean up the look of some of my blogs. I started off in one format and now that I've got enough posts to fill things up, I'm wondering how to get them a bit cleaner. The main thing I'm wanting to deal with is category and tag pages. Right now, they show entire posts and that's not ideal to say the least. Takes too much space and I'm concerned about the duplication factor.

How are you using excerpts? Are you writing the truly "hand-crafted summaries of your content" or are you just taking the first couple paragraphs or are you using them at all?

Is there a best way to handle this? I'm sure there are lots of preferred ways and many likely have their own preferred way, but what about from an SEO standpoint?

The other option is using the "more" quick tag. Is one way better than another? Pros/Cons?

[Gaystoryman]

The hand crafted excerpt is basically another 'description' that actually can be quite effective in getting people to come look.

Again, like the description meta tag, it should be kept to a minimum, have a few good keywords in it, but above all else, NOT be what has been written. In other words, part of a hook to get them to the post, which avoids duplicate worries.

Another note, [yes this is already becoming a long post] it is what I use when I set my blog feed to 'summary' rather than 'full post'. So it becomes an additional hook [well an attempt at one anyways] to get people to come to the site, to read the post and hopefully buy buy buy.

Some themes for example ( like my Average Joe blog ) is preset to show only the beginning of the post, with a thumbnail, on the main page. So for that one, it just grabs the first set amount of characters. On the other hand, my new Erotic Adult Story blog, I use the more tag, so I can have more posts showing on the first page, plus I use a plugin to paginate the posts as well.

From checking my Google Analytics, it seems the more tag does get them going more into the site, increasing their time on site, plus it allows for more diverse content on the first page, which I think is always good to have.

In short Tigger Speak Six of One, Half Dozen of Another [course he was talking about red wine, but .. ]

[Tigger]

How are you using excerpts? Are you writing the truly "hand-crafted summaries of your content" or are you just taking the first couple paragraphs or are you using them at all?

I use the first couple paragraphs and whilst I know you could say theirs a small duplicate issue here so far its not been a problem and all my blogs are doing what I want them to do

In short Tigger Speak Six of One, Half Dozen of Another [course he was talking about red wine, but ..

Rosé please, Red is for winter ................come on Ian YOU should know that

[VoyGeorge]

A good SEO plugin can mark tag and category pages as noindex, so there's no possibility of them messing up with your SERPs.

If you already use the --more-- tag on your posts there are some plugins (I've seen, but don't use) that will self-excerpt for any type of page you want. It's done for you on the index, but the excerpts are also applied to other page types as you wish - tag, category, or searches. And of course you can revise your theme to do this if you don't want to use a plugin.

As far as using separate excerpts, I try to write my posts so that they lead out as teasers anyway. I use a paragraph or two to get their attention, and always an image of some type to color things up a bit. As tigs notes, I don't think the SEs treat this as dupe content.

[SaschaIllyvich]

There is the rub, huh? I usually use excerpts as a way to pull in the readers. It's like copyediting, fuck the SEO aspect for just a moment (waits for the gasp) but I'm a writer fifrst, as you are all webmasters etc first. So get them hooked with the excerpt. If you can SEO it, better I'm guessing.

What? No gasp? and yeah, red wine all the time. White wine only in summer

Sascha

[Tigger]

What? No gasp?

gasp

without the SEO you won't get anyone reading your stories - so the question do you build sites/ blogs for SE or humans ? I know what I do

[gonzogone]

Sascha - that's the key, you're a writer and do it well. I'm just a guy who writes and tries to build in some SEO to the writing I can handle. You can grab people with words, but you've still got to get them to the site and that's where the SEO side comes in.

You and Tiggs are at opposite ends of the spectrum - you write for people and Tiggs writes for bots. I try to blend the two, leaning towards the bot side.

Back to the topic I started with... Decided to just go with "more". Going back through olds posts as I have a few minutes here and there and adding it to them to shorten up category pages. Making sure that there's a teaser pic included and a couple paragraphs, roughly 75-100 words.

[Tigger]

Back to the topic I started with... Decided to just go with "more".

its what I do and I've not had any problems so far ................

[gonzogone]

it's for sure the simple solution, and you know me... I'm a simpleton...

[Tigger]

[SaschaIllyvich]

Originally Posted by Tigger

gasp

without the SEO you won't get anyone reading your stories - so the question do you build sites/ blogs for SE or humans ? I know what I do

Student4Ever pointed out the big difference here. Before the advent of SEO, i used story sites to build readership and that technique still works well. The problem of course is that with ebooks and some of the lame ass publishers, "everyone" can be a writer nowadays. So voice and SEO are the things that separate. I'm learning still.

and Student4Ever, I'm gathering based on what I'm seeing as trends that you HAVE to blend both.

I'm swamped as hell right now (all year really) but if you need help with copy, don't hesitate to ask. I believe you have my email.

Sascha

[gonzogone]

[VoyGeorge]

You guys are thinking too hard. Why come up with two great leads to your posts? Do it once, and make that your excerpt. Use the <--more--> tag so that your index page doesn't have the full post. Revise your theme, if needed, so that tag, category, and search pages also use the excerpt. Use an SEO plugin to mark these as noindex.

Done.

If your lead/excerpt is interesting to people, it will be to the SE bots, too. You'll have put your money keywords there, *and* you'll draw in your readers.

(As an added feature, I use a "kicker line" on my posts that includes secondary keywords. It appears under the H1 heading, is formatted in all-caps, but uses a custom style that the SEs will see as regular text. Tigs, one of your static HTML templates has this. It's *very* good getting the bots to come in.)

[Tigger]

Student4Ever pointed out the big difference here. Before the advent of SEO, i used story sites to build readership and that technique still works well. The problem of course is that with ebooks and some of the lame ass publishers, "everyone" can be a writer nowadays. So voice and SEO are the things that separate. I'm learning still.

SEO isn't really that hard if you follow the basics - where it gets hard is getting the page ranking at the top

As a content writer you have a massive opportunity to get content into the SE, I've got a couple of story sites that rank well but I struggle getting the content (stories) and wished I had your or Ian's skill to bash out a 1000 words without effort - for me anything past 500 words and I'm struggling, which is just about right for the SE's just hope by then I've got the punter hooked or at least clicked a link by the time they get to the bottom

Use the <--more--> tag so that your index page doesn't have the full post. Revise your theme, if needed, so that tag, category, and search pages also use the excerpt. Use an SEO plugin to mark these as noindex.

I use this although not the noindex and duplicate content has never been an issue, I wonder if G doesn't expect this ranking the primary posting first and using the category as a separate listing - but I do agree that we spend too much time worrying this