/images/header_2.jpg "Cutline Theme for WordPress")
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 <!--more--> tag like you see in the image below.
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!
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?
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
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.
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? [...]
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!!
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
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) [...]
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) [...]
is this seo friendly
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!
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
Hi Chris,
I left (Keep Reading) on my blog http://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
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
nice article I never knew what that little button was lol
Hummerbie,
Hey, if you’re gonna do it, ya may as well do it right!
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.Contributor Guidelines | FUN VAMPIRES // Jan 24, 2007 at 10:42 am
[...] If you don’t know how to make a teaser here to learn. [...]
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.
Hello,
I need to translate Keep Reading to French, where can I do this within Cutline Theme?
Thanks.
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…..
Great Site, I just love this Cutline theme.
I need to translate Keep Reading to French, where can I do this within Cutline Theme?
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?
how do you do teasers like this with thumbnails?
http://www.racingvideoz.com/
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.
The concern with this for SEO is that search engines may penalize duplicate content. Frankly I wouldn’t worry about this.
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!
oh, one other thing i forgot…
is it possible to disable the “read more” for certain posts? (or just all posts in general)
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.
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
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.
Is there a way to apply teasers to all pages, and not just the front page?
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!
Changing front page in 10 seconds is a great article … Images and teaser will allow ur flexility in changing the design and also attract more people is a great concept..