How to Improve Your Front Page and Gain Page Views in 10 Seconds!

November 15th, 2006 · 83 Comments

Use post teasers to improve your total number of page views! It’s rare that you can accomplish anything noteworthy on the Web in just 10 seconds, but today’s little tip is the real deal. Instead of publishing full posts on the front page of your site, you ought to try implementing post teasers — inticing tidbits that you can use to lure in readers and get ‘em focused on your content.

How to make a teaser with WordPress

A lot of folks have asked me how I get my teasers to work on the front page of this site, and I’m here to tell ya that it’s brutally simple.

If you’re using the Rich Visual Text Editor, just follow these steps:

Place the cursor after the end of the text that you want to appear as your teaser.
Click on the button shown in the image at right, and this will separate the post at your desired location and generate a teaser on your front page!

If you’re not using the Rich Visual Text Editor, then you’ll be happy to know that creating teasers is still a breeze. All you have to do is locate the position in your text where you’d like the teaser to end, and then simply insert the  tag like you see in the image below.

In the regular text editor, simply insert the more tag as shown in this image

Why teasers?

There are a ton of reasons why teasers will improve your blog, but here are some of my favorites:

Your page views metric will increase because readers will have to click through from the front page in order to read the entire article.
You will be forced to learn to write high-impact copy at the beginning of your posts, because if your teasers aren’t inticing, no one will care to click through to read the rest of your articles.
You now have more flexibility with your styling on the home page. If you scroll down the front page of this site, you’ll see that I routinely involve the use of images to “spice up” the page. Teasers provide you with this advantage because they make more content available in a smaller area.
Teasers allow users to get accustomed to clicking around on your site, which places you in a favorable psychological position with your readers.

So, what are you waiting for? Reach out and tease someone!

Do you like this article? Submit it to Blogosphere News!

Tags: How To

83 responses so far ↓

1 Hummerbie // Nov 15, 2006 at 5:03 pm

Hello Chris,

Great Teaser, like it a lot.
Just one question, what does it do if you have a full text Feed active?

Does it still take the whole text, or does if give you a reed more in the Feed?
2 Chris // Nov 15, 2006 at 5:16 pm

Hummerbie,

I just checked the feed for this site in Bloglines, and I got entire posts.

So, based on that little (and hardly scientific) experiment, I think it takes the entire text.
3 Hummerbie // Nov 15, 2006 at 5:25 pm

Thanks You Chris, as always a fast respons….
I can sleep easy tonight.
4 Rick Beckman // Nov 15, 2006 at 5:37 pm

In the Wordpress admin panel, under Options » Reading, there is an option to choose whether you want full text or summary displayed in your syndication feeds.
5 Tim // Nov 15, 2006 at 7:01 pm

Great post, thanks.
6 How to Implement Post Teasers with WordPress | Pearsonified // Nov 15, 2006 at 7:18 pm

[…] Back in April, I wrote about how the use of home page teasers was a great way to boost page views. Problem was, I never showed you an easy way to implement them with WordPress. Seven months later, here you go — the 10 second post teaser solution! […]
7 Larry // Nov 15, 2006 at 9:44 pm

What is the Post Slug menu for? I’ve tried to the thing and I cannot get it to work.

I open my admin panel and click on write post next it give title and write the post. After the second paragraph I added the the (MORE) and looked at it in the preview editor and it doesn’t give a like to the rest of the article. Help
8 Rick Beckman // Nov 15, 2006 at 10:02 pm

The preview isn’t going to display the More link; the preview shows you the entire article. You’ll have to publish a post and view it on the index, an archive page, or a search page to see the More tag in action.

The Post Slug option controls what the post’s permalink address is. For instance, on this post here at Cutline, the post slug is “how-to-improve-your-front-page-and-gain-page-views-in-10-seconds,” which is most likely what Wordpress automatically made up based on what the post’s title was. Had the author wanted, a post slug of “improved-front-page-using-more-tag” or similar for the sake of brevity.
9 Chris // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:13 pm

Larry,

Rick’s explanation was spot-on. Thanks, Beckman!
10 Charlie // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:48 pm

Dig the article! Wrote a similar one myself a wee bit back, but yours wins due to the sexy images!
11 Why You Don’t Mess with Another Man’s Work | Pearsonified // Nov 16, 2006 at 2:44 am

[…] 2 I found out about this whole thing because apparently, the guy was naïve enough to leave a comment at the Cutline support site. Smart. […]
12 Jitendra // Nov 16, 2006 at 7:49 pm

Love the clean look…Great job
13 gio // Nov 18, 2006 at 1:42 am

I followed exactly what you said but it doesnt seem to work for me. Any help please.
14 Chris // Nov 19, 2006 at 4:03 pm

Gio,

It looks like it’s working…Did you manage to fix it?
15 gio // Nov 21, 2006 at 1:47 am

yes i fixed it finally. Im validating my codes now. I really hope to make it xhtml valid.

This theme must be the most beautiful theme i have ever used.
16 Nova // Nov 21, 2006 at 12:45 pm

Hi Chris

My technical knowledge is pretty minimal. I have been trying to install the rich visual editor plugin on Cutline and nothing it doesn’t show up. I have been through the instructions about installation over and over. Does cutline support it?
17 lawton // Nov 21, 2006 at 12:49 pm

Chris, how do you do that cool text in the quotes? The different colors…are they CSS based?

The text that says Post Teasers…
18 Chris // Nov 21, 2006 at 2:07 pm

Gio — It totally is

Nova — The plugin works with the WordPress Administration Panel and has nothing at all to do with the Cutline theme. The fact that it doesn’t work is an issue with the installation or with the plugin itself. Make sure you’re running a version of WordPress that is compatible with the plugin, and if that doesn’t help you, you may consider contacting the developer.

Lawton — In this post, the “quote” is actually a graphic, not text. Now that really would be some CSS wizardry!
19 Torley // Nov 21, 2006 at 11:29 pm

Great, very crisp article! I use post teasers myself on occasion for longer articles. Sometimes, I just have a lot to say, but just like any good story, I agree, it’s useful to start off with a *BANG* and finish with a *PUNCH*. Or something like that!
20 Larry // Nov 21, 2006 at 11:46 pm

Thanks for all the help guys. My blog is starting to come together with your help and the use of this killer templete.

Question, how do make the text in an article wrap text, like above inthe POST TEASER.
21 Rick Beckman // Nov 22, 2006 at 12:04 am

Larry: The above “Post Teaser” is an image, not text.

But, line breaks in quotes are as simple as inserting a, well, line break.
22 Peter // Nov 22, 2006 at 12:36 am

What’s up Chris,

I love the cutline theme…it’s very sharp.

Yet, I notice that my links in the sidebar stay black and not blue, is there a way to fix that?

My site is www.AventuraCondoPimp.com

Thanks.
23 Chris // Nov 22, 2006 at 12:42 am

Larry,

You could also wrap text around a pullquote (which is text) as described in this article on professional publishing with Cutline.
24 Lucky Balaraman // Nov 22, 2006 at 1:29 am

Terrific post… I was dismayed after plugins for teasers didn’t work and am over the moon at your solution.

Plus I’m adding you to my blogroll.

Thanks a ton!
25 Rich Harlos // Nov 23, 2006 at 12:01 am

Hi, Chris. This is my first time to your site and I must say I’m very impressed with the Cutline template for WordPress.

I’m having a bit of trouble, though, getting my new site (with only 3 “testing” posts) to display correctly in Firefox (IE, of course, shows fine).

Your site appears fine but mine, with v1.3 as my first/only cutline template, has this ugly dark gray bar across the header menu, and the footer text on the header level on the right-hand side of the screen.

If you could take a quick look at the url of my website on this comment, I’d be grateful.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Rich
26 Chris // Nov 23, 2006 at 12:14 am

Rich,

The Spam Karma 2 plugin places that text in the wp_footer() hook that lies in the footer.php file. It shows up in the wrong place because the theme hook that the plugin uses is not in the right place within the code.

Unfortunately, when I constructed the theme, I moved the wp_footer() declaration outside of the actual footer block, not knowing that it would affect plugins of this nature.

I’ve gone ahead and fixed the footer.php file, though, so you can actually just download the theme again to correct the problem. This time, however, only upload the footer.php file to your server, and you should be fine!
27 Rich Harlos // Nov 23, 2006 at 12:24 am

Chris, I’m completely dazzled by your quick reply and your fixing the footer file … THANK YOU SO MUCH!

You have a new fan!

Rich
28 Timen // Nov 23, 2006 at 10:16 am

Hi Chris,

I’m looking at Cutline as a potential theme to base a new blog on. It’s really great. I have a question…

I was wondering why you have “Search Results” code in your archive.php. I cannot get it to run that code because searches always use search.php. What’s the deal with this?
29 jp // Nov 23, 2006 at 7:09 pm

Thanks for this tip. Have implemented it immediately!
30 gio // Nov 25, 2006 at 2:41 am

Hi Cris,

Is it ok to modify your Cutline Theme AND have it available for download on my site? I will include your link and my link. Will that be ok?
31 Chris // Nov 25, 2006 at 10:55 am

Gio,

If you retain the attribution links in both the footer and the stylesheet (as they are on your site right now), then that would be just fine.

I’m sure lots of folks would love to use your implementation — it’s nicely done!
32 Chris // Nov 25, 2006 at 11:07 am

Timen,

The search function searches all your posts from anywhere on your site. Given that fact, I’m not really sure I understand the nature of your question.
33 gio // Nov 25, 2006 at 12:36 pm

Chris,

Thank you.

BTW, I noticed I don’t receive any email notification from this comment althoug I’ve already subscribed.
34 Timen // Nov 25, 2006 at 6:17 pm

Chris,

Sorry about that. I should be more clear.

There seems to be code to display search results in archive.php as well as search.php. Why? When does the respective code in archive.php show?
35 Kevin Donahue // Nov 25, 2006 at 6:53 pm

Several people have asked how to do a pull quote or something similar to the “Post Teasers” image in the original post. There are a few pull quote plugins for wordpress that can do this with little/no effort. The pullquotes can be styled with a little css, and off ya go.

You could (probably) do much the same with metadata, setting a Custom Field to contain the pull quote text, and then stylizing based on the key value.

Or, if you really want to trick it up, you could further expand the blockquote css to include a pullquote class, changing the variables to meet your needs with a little float and other goodies.
36 Matt // Nov 26, 2006 at 12:09 am

How do I go about setting my header text to align to the right..instead of the center. Also, is there any way to include some grey text underneath my title? A little catchphrase perhaps?
37 Chris // Nov 26, 2006 at 12:22 pm

Timen,

I could eliminate that code. The only way it would ever show up is if you had nothing in your database, but you still tried to access an archive link.
38 Chris // Nov 26, 2006 at 12:40 pm

Kevin,

In this particular post, the “Post Teasers” pseudo-pullquote at the top is actually a graphic.

Pullquotes with Cutline are a breeze!

Aside from that, the easiest way (by far) to implement pullquotes is simply to use the embedded classes that come with Cutline. Learn more about them in my post, How to Post Like a Pro with Cutline.
39 amish // Nov 27, 2006 at 5:46 pm

Chris - I’m currently testing out Cutline and the search function doesn’t seem to work for me. Rather than returning any relevant search results, it appears to just be loading the front page of the blog.

The search function here (cutline.tubetutorial.com) appears to be working fine, but when I install the theme, it starts acting up.

Is there anything special that I need to do to get this to work properly?
40 Chris // Nov 27, 2006 at 6:06 pm

Amish,

It’s extremely hard for me to troubleshoot your site’s performance if you fail to provide me with a link.

I’m betting your search was behaving strangely because there was no content to search.

Either that or the relevant files within your wp-includes folder have become corrupted. I’m certainly not going to bet on this being the case, though.
41 amish // Nov 28, 2006 at 12:02 am

Sorry about that, I forgot to include the URL in both places.

www.amishshah.com
42 amish // Nov 28, 2006 at 1:20 am

Chris-

I’m also going to shoot you a non-Cutline-specific question, since you seem to be a Wordpress guru and I haven’t been able to find an answer elsewhere.

I have a bunch of other html files within my domain. Some are within folders, some are in the root directory (where my wordpress installation also resides). When I try to view any of these pages in a browser, I get the wordpress 404 page instead of the actual contents of that particular file. It seems like wordpress is returning the 404 because these pages do not “exist” within Wordress? Do you know how I can disable this functionality?
43 amish // Nov 28, 2006 at 2:15 am

Sorry to keep flooding your thread….

The search bug is fixed. I screwed up some other things while messing around with Wordpress and ended up deleting the installation and starting over. This time I installed to a different directoy, but changed the options to let it publish to root, and now search seems to work fine.

Still having some issues with the 404 page stuff. Moving the WP installation helped - the pages now appear as they should. However I’m trying some tricky ‘php-in-html’ stuff to try to get these different files to redirect to other pages, and that seems to be causing problems. Basically I’m trying to redirect entries from my previous Movable Type installation to the corresponding entries in Wordpress and somewhere along the line it is getting screwed up. Not sure if you have any experience in this realm, or if you have any thoughts in general, but any insight is appreciated.

Also, I never actually told you how great I think this theme and your pearsonified themes are. Mad props.
44 Raquita // Nov 30, 2006 at 11:45 am

I am about to launch cutline as my template cause I love it, however I’d like to make the header image a tad bit larger - is that allowed, and then pray tell how would I do it? I am still but a moron when it comes to this stuff I am only goodenough not to totally blow up my PC. and help you could provide would be totally WICKED - one more question to prove my moronity - what is a Rich Visual Text editor? and where would I find one….
45 Chris // Nov 30, 2006 at 12:16 pm

Raquita,

In the header.php file, the images all have width and height attributes applied to them. In the default configuration, the heights are all specified as 140px.

If you want a taller header image, simply change all of the height declarations to however large you want your images to be.

Of course, in order to make that work properly, you’ll have to produce some header images at the size of your choice
46 Raquita // Nov 30, 2006 at 12:32 pm

Chris you totally ROCK dude!!

hey what is a Rich Visual Text Editor is that in wordpress?
47 Chris // Nov 30, 2006 at 12:38 pm

I knew I forgot to answer something — that’s what I get for doing 50 things at once.

Anyhoo, the Rich Visual Text Editor is the default setup for composing posts in WordPress. You can toggle it on or off by going to the Users tab in your Administration Panel, and then by checking/unchecking the box that says “Use the visual rich editor when writing.”
48 Mike // Nov 30, 2006 at 5:05 pm

Chris,

The theme is just what I was looking for. I have to add some company info down on the footer for compliance reasons. Is there any way I can add the company info down there without disrupting your default footer.
49 Raquita // Dec 1, 2006 at 12:21 am

hey one last question how do I remove the basic black type at the top of the page - or at the very least make it smaller…
50 Raquita // Dec 1, 2006 at 12:22 am

never mind I think I got it!!
51 Raquita // Dec 2, 2006 at 11:24 am

quick question, I put alot of link categories in my blog and one of the categories seems - well - stuck in a bad place - can you tell me how to fix that?
52 Drew // Dec 10, 2006 at 8:55 pm

Chris

What would cause a more tag not to work properly? For instance, it displays the entire article and just ignores that the more tag is there on the website using FireFox.

Andrew
53 Chris // Dec 10, 2006 at 11:07 pm

Drew,

I just went to your site, and your tag appeared to be working fine, as I was greeted with a teaser on your front page.
54 Readers, I need your help! : All Things Bright by Kathleen Bright // Dec 11, 2006 at 5:50 pm

[…] Apparently, using excerpts linking to the full entries would improve my front page. But what do you think? […]
55 Hummerbie // Dec 15, 2006 at 7:00 am

Chris,

I am trying to improve the number of pageviews from the frontpage with the “Related Posts” plugin.

Just like you did for Copyblogger.

The problem is, the posts show up, but they cling together.
I can’t get a nice listing…..

I tried the options ul, dl en il in the backend of the plugin but I must do something wrong…

Any help..well you know what I am asking, thanks!!

I love this theme…and the support you give us!!
56 Hummerbie // Dec 19, 2006 at 4:36 pm

Found it !!

I filled the wrong options is “related posts”
I should have put in before and after in the posting title option.

Instead is had put them in the after excerpts…

Works great, now running and testing the effects on seo as wel
57 links for 2006-12-12 // willkoca // Dec 19, 2006 at 5:01 pm

[…] How to Improve Your Front Page and Gain Page Views in 10 Seconds! | Cutline Theme for WordPress (tags: blogging wordpress) […]
58 links for 2006-11-20 // willkoca // Dec 19, 2006 at 5:02 pm

[…] How to Improve Your Front Page and Gain Page Views in 10 Seconds! (tags: wordpress) […]
59 abhinav // Dec 21, 2006 at 2:54 am

is this seo friendly
60 Hummerbie // Jan 1, 2007 at 3:48 pm

To Abhinav,

If you mean is this template SEO Friendly?
Then I have to say YES…

I recently did a test out of frustration with a SEO Company, just to see if I could work what they could not and see how it worked out.
Now, I am from The Netherlands, so the term I tried to get rankend is also dutch, and a three keyword frase..

I wrote a page on a blog with The Cutline Theme with the title “Zoekmachine Optimalisatie Specialist”.
Within one week, I now hold the top nr 1 position in Google.com and nr 3 in Google.nl

So it is clear to me that the Combination of WordPress with The Cutline Theme by Chris Pearson is more then SEO Friendly, it is a competion killer

Thank you Chris for making the Theme SEO from the start!
61 Byron // Jan 1, 2007 at 6:08 pm

Hi Chris,

I’m a new to blogging but have tried several themes, and think cutline is great. Every time I insert More (that displays as Keep reading) on the Front Page after posting something the Search Box the blogroll and recent entries move to the bottom of the page. I’d like to avoid this and can’t figure out how to fix it. If you could please guide me I would greatly appreciate it.

Additionally, is there a way to create a colored border on cutline such as the black border you have on pearsonified.com

Thank you

Happy New Year, continued success for you and your family

Byron
62 Byron // Jan 1, 2007 at 6:58 pm

Hi Chris,

I left (Keep Reading) on my blog www.buhoxabio.com to see if you have a solution to the problem of the searchbox moving to the bottom of the page….Thanks

Byron
63 Byron // Jan 1, 2007 at 9:10 pm

Hi Chris,

I’m having difficulties working with more tags. Whenever I insert a more tag on the Front Page, my searchbox and everything under it moves to the bottom of the page. Am i doing something incorrectly that could be causing this?
Thank you

Byron
64 Alex G // Jan 2, 2007 at 9:56 am

nice article I never knew what that little button was lol
65 Chris // Jan 2, 2007 at 10:58 am

Hummerbie,

Hey, if you’re gonna do it, ya may as well do it right!
66 Chris // Jan 2, 2007 at 11:10 am

Byron,

It appears that you’ve made some modifications to the original CSS, and if you changed any widths, then that’s probably what’s causing the sidebar to crap out when you use <--more--> tag.

As far as a background/border goes, you need to wrap the entire content in a new div. This will create a “page” effect, and you’ll be able to apply borders and backgrounds without affecting the whitespace behind and around the content.
67 Contributor Guidelines | FUN VAMPIRES // Jan 24, 2007 at 10:42 am

[…] If you don’t know how to make a teaser here to learn. […]
68 Robert Richard // Jan 30, 2007 at 3:26 pm

Hello again,

Where can I translate Keep reading →? Need to get this bilingual, French & English, « Poursuivre votre lecture? »

The last bottom article on this page is not working; needed to put Keep Reading instead :
http://yvondurelle.com/index.php?paged=4 .

Thanks for your reply.
69 Robert Richard // Jan 30, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Hello,

I need to translate Keep Reading to French, where can I do this within Cutline Theme?

Thanks.
70 Sirthinks // Feb 5, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Not only does your theme rock, you have excellent tips and hints. thanks for this one.

The solution has literally been staring me in the face… Hehe…. But it sure does clean up the front page…..
71 Amit // Feb 9, 2007 at 12:39 am

Great Site, I just love this Cutline theme.
72 izlesene // Feb 10, 2007 at 4:13 pm

I need to translate Keep Reading to French, where can I do this within Cutline Theme?
73 Dean // Feb 17, 2007 at 9:36 am

In the WordPress 2.1 control panel, under Options–>Reading there is a section on Syndication Feeds. It says the following:

Note: If you use the feature, it will cut off posts in RSS feeds.

On this same options page I’ve selected the radio button to show the full feed text. But in my feeds the posts get cut off.

I’ve noticed your feed shows the full feed text. Did you have to do anything special?

Any ideas?
74 ryan // Feb 23, 2007 at 1:40 pm

how do you do teasers like this with thumbnails?
http://www.racingvideoz.com/
75 billybob // Mar 7, 2007 at 6:05 pm

abhinav and Hummerbie,

The concern with this for SEO is that search engines may penalize duplicate content. Frankly I wouldn’t worry about this.

But if you want, you can use a sitemap with a link on the front page, and block access to spiders everywhere else using .htaccess, so the spiders have to go through the sitemap. Then they won’t see the duplicate content, but everything will get indexed just fine.
76 exper health // Mar 9, 2007 at 5:40 pm

The concern with this for SEO is that search engines may penalize duplicate content. Frankly I wouldn’t worry about this.
77 Eric // Mar 24, 2007 at 10:41 pm

Is it possible to display a “read more” post teaser just in the archives and categories section, but leave the full text on the index page?

thanks!
78 Eric // Mar 24, 2007 at 10:42 pm

oh, one other thing i forgot…

is it possible to disable the “read more” for certain posts? (or just all posts in general)
79 Franck Silvestre // Mar 26, 2007 at 7:39 am

It’s an awesome post Chris.

I am also worried about the duplicate content penality with many similar pages on my blog.

izlesene, French translation software are not worth it. I am French, and when I read translations, I can’t stop laughing, it’s really too funny.
80 Tom // Apr 17, 2007 at 4:17 pm

Chris,

I’m in love with your theme, but I have a problem. Right after I switched over to using post teasers (my blog is only 3 posts old) everything on the main page below the first teaser shows up in LARGE TEXT.

Please help, I want to keep using your theme, but it looks awful this way.

Thanks again,

Tom
81 John Rang // Apr 27, 2007 at 7:33 am

Hi

Can we implement the same technique on blogs run by scripts other than WP? it would been nice if you gave me an insight into it. Currently I have some WP BLOGs and one run by v2evolution.

Will visit again for your comments.
82 MRN // Jun 6, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Is there a way to apply teasers to all pages, and not just the front page?
83 Publicidad en Internet // Jul 3, 2007 at 8:41 pm

Hello,
Great post, and like you say. Teasers force you to write high impact introductions in a post. I have been using them, it’s a cool tool. And besides cutline theme is really great!

Cutline Theme for WordPress

One Giant Leap for Mankind