Blog Tips 2: Home Page with No Post Text is Not Good

Good morning TechWelkin readers!

Yesterday a friend, who writes and manages a Hindi blog, asked me for a way of showing only link titles of recent posts on home page. He didn’t want to show any text from the posts. I advised him against this temptation and today I decided to write about pros and cons of this approach.

My above-mentioned friend is not alone. There are many bloggers who feel that giving a list of linked title on the home page of blog is a great idea. Two of their arguments in support of this approach are:

1. It forces a reader to click on the link title and that could translate in a deeper exploration of the blog by the visitor. This could decrease the bounce rate and increase the number of page views.
2. Removing post text will give space for more links on blog home page. That is to say that you’ll be able to introduce more recent posts on home page.

Both of the above arguments are pretty logical –but I will vote against them. The reason is that both of the arguments are serving neither your reader not the search engines.

Disadvantages of Only Post Links on Home Page

From the readers’ viewpoint, they come to read your blog and not to explore it. It is in favor of the blogger to make reading as easy as possible. By showing only links-to-posts on home page, you’re actually creating trouble for the reader as she will have to click and open a new page for reading the post. In countries with relatively slower internet connections, and also for mobile readers with slow mobile Internet, such a technique will be annoying to readers.

Don’t make your blog’s home page look like a link directory.

Moreover, readers will feel cheated if title does not convey clearly what the post is about. If title conveys one thing and the post does not turn out to be what the reader had expected –she is bound to feel even more irritated.

This practice, in my view, is also a bad one if you look at it through the magnifying lens of search engines. Keeping only links will reduce Text-to-HTML ratio of your homepage and that is not at all recommended. A linked list will also give an idea to the search engine that the homepage is basically a link directory. And trust me, link directories are not in the good books of major search engines.

Conclusion

It is sensible to keep post text or post excerpts on home page along with the linked post titles. This helps reader in getting to know the post better right there on the home page. Don’t force your readers. An irritated reader is never a good omen for your blog.

So, bloggers, don’t get into unwarranted tricks for increasing pageviews. Write well, write original, write useful and traffic will invariably increase.

Wanna say something on this? Go ahead and comment!