Full Text or Excerpts – What’s Best For Corporate Blog RSS Feeds?

If you are putting together an RSS feed for your corporate blog, you may be wondering what way is the best way to deliver that RSS Feed. Should you use full text so that your subscribers can read the entire post in their feed reader without having to click on any links, or should you use a post excerpt so that readers are forced to visit your corporate blog for the rest of the story?

If you subscribe to RSS feeds that relate to blogging or internet marketing subjects, then you will probably discover that the full text feed philosophy is the one that wins a lot of debates on the subject. On the other hand, you may have noticed that many popular news sites like ESPN, AP News and CNN are using the excerpt method instead. Some of these news sites only display the headlines in their RSS feed and do not show any of the story until you visit the actual website. So which method is the right method for your corporate blog?

The real answer to this question is that the best method is whatever best suits your business model.

For example:

Major news websites and sports websites have the same business model that they have always used. The more people they have reading their articles and content, the more they can end up charging for advertising. For this reason, their primary objective is simply to drive people into their websites so that they can retain the highest readership numbers possible to reach the highest possible advertising rates in the process. By offering only a short excerpt or only a headline forces the reader to either click to come in and read more, or to move on.

Is this how you want to regard your readers?

One of the number one goals for most internet marketers and bloggers is to gain the trust of the largest possible audience. Your readers are not only potential customers, but they are also your supporters. Because it is so difficult to obtain high readership numbers, doesn’t it make sense to try to retain your readers at any cost? Most people like to read all of their websites in a single place which is what RSS aggregators are really all about. If you make reading easier for your readers, they will appreciate it more than you realize.

Does the monetization strategy for your corporate blogging effort depend on attracting viewers to your website? The excerpt feed method may be best if you depend on people actually coming to your website, but it takes a lot of traffic to make a living in this manner so you should not necessarily depend on it.

Another consideration to make is this:

Does your website have enough authority to draw people in just based on headlines or small excerpts alone? Even if you are an authority in the field, it is unlikely that your blog has gained enough experience, credibility and exposure to rival the attraction websites like CNN can generate. You should not hold anything back from your readers, so give them everything that you can in your RSS feed. If you give your readers exactly what they subscribed to, you will benefit from an increase in RSS subscribers, more posts getting bookmarks on sites like Digg, Delicio.us, Technorati and StumbleUpon, more viewer comments, and more viewers talking about your blog in theirs.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-10-28 05:35:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts
  • boxgloveReview of: Brute Force RSS (An RSS Blasting Service) Brute Force SEO has long been a popular solution for businesses and individuals looking to create a more efficient web presence online. Taking things one step further, Brute force RSS, an RSS blasting service, is creating this same type of improved web presence, but this time focusing on corporate blogs......
  • Know your competition.How to Learn from Your Competitors to Build a Better Corporate Blog Sometimes it can be pretty tough to get inspiration for a new corporate blog. You may understand that you need one, but you’re not quite sure where to start. There’s an easy way that you can put together a plan for your own blog and it will only take a......
  • blog traffic exchangeProfessional Blogging Roundup: The Early Veteran's Day Edition We hope you enjoy this latest edition of the Professional Corporate Blogging Roundup. We endeavor to bring new and helpful links to your attention by highlighting them. Here are some links we thought were worthwhile from the past week: Corporate Affiliate Product Reviews presents Blogging for Internet Marketers: How to......
  • What do those little orange buttons mean?How do RSS Feeds Work? If you’re confounded by that little orange graphic you see on blogs, it’s time to learn all about RSS and how it can benefit your own blog. Most software packages and content management systems offer RSS capablility, but it’s up to you to implement it. When used properly, RSS feeds......
  • blog traffic exchangeProfessional Blogging Roundup: On RSS Feeds, PR, Writing Tips, and More Happy belated Thanksgiving. Did everyone enjoy their four day weekend? I know I did. The turkey was great. Here we are again with another edition of the roundup; lots of interesting things to read and think about! Corporate For some thoughts On Blogging, College Mogul, Drupal, and Acquia check out......
Blog Traffic Exchange Related Websites
  • readers1Turning Blog Visitors into Blog Readers Bringing traffic in the form of blog visitors to your website is really only the beginning when it comes to creating an effective blog. Many of these visitors may only be stopping by once, never to return again. There are a number of different little things that can be done......
  • PFBlogs.orgSome personal finance aggregators worth a look If you follow money-related blogs at all, you've probably organized your favorite RSS feeds in a feed reader like Google Reader or Bloglines. Google Reader suggests new feeds you might like, but what about checking out a lot of feeds - some of which may be new to you -......
  • blog traffic exchangeWhen Rss Feeds Go Bad.. Lately you may have noticed that the same blog message keeps coming to you. I have my rss feed connected to my autoresponder, for some reason beyond my control getresponse keeps pinging my blog. I am writing this post to let you know that I am aware of what is......
  • blog traffic exchange2 New RSS Feeds: LazyMan24H and LazyManAutofund I have to admit I have been extremely lazy.  The LazyMan published his queries back on March 23rd.  I immediately thought they would make great RSS feeds.  I even promised him that I would create them... Tick tock tick tock tick tock...  Today I finally came through on my promise... ......
  • blog traffic exchangeThe Benefits of Using RSS Feeds Are you using RSS Feeds on your website yet?If not, then you are missing out on some really amazing benefits. Simply by adding RSS feeds to your website, you can get more visitors to your site, boost your income and get a higher ranking in the search engines. The benefits......
audience blog blog entries blogger bloggers blogging blogosphere blogs business owners carnival comments section company news consumers controversy customer base different ways e mail few minutes google inspiration job little bit many different ways marketing mistake money next level niche page views platforms popularity readership relationship relationships risk search engine search engine optimization search engine rankings search engines seo social bookmarking sites social networking target traffic word of mouth