Blog Functionality Question

[Jay]

Back in the day I was taught that successful gay porn blogs didn’t make someone click on a thumbnail to see the entire posts or to find the link to go to a sponsor. Hence you put the entire post on the main timeline and clicks on images, etc. went to the sponsor site. However, I just looked through the blogs who rank for ‘gay porn blog’ and nearly all of them do some form of a >1 click to sponsor. So either they show a thumbnail and a title or they do a small collage and a little text - but you have to click on those to go to the full post and clicks on the thumbnail/collage just take you to the full post. They don’t take you to the sponsor site. The ones with a collage and a little text may have links in the text that would take you to the sponsor site, but they’re not really “calls to action”. The users sorta have to work to find the links.

So why have things changed? Why would successful blogs want to make it harder for users to get to the sponsor site?

[Bec]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

A lot of that is probably because so many sites are now using the “magazine” style themes (such as these free responsive magazine themes). They are usually setup to have x amount of text before automatically inserting the “more” code, which is why you don’t have the sponsor link on the main page. Magazine styles gives the page a cleaner, more “pro” look, and I’d say that most all good magazine themes are now responsive and include cool sliders, auto cropping of images for front page vs actual full post, plus a bunch of other features and customization that can be done by the user and not having to hire a designer to do the tweaks. It’s also a popular layout used by most sites that sell products to display a grid arrangement of what’s available to the shopper.

I think most internet users have become used to this style of design, and are getting used to seeing a thumb of the topic or product and having to click for more information. The internet keeps evolving, and as it does, we pretty much have to keep up with what’s current, even if it means allowing/adding in that “extra” click to get the user to the sponsor site.

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

Bec - Yeah, I understand all that. But which is better for sales? Has anyone done A/B testing on this? I’m just having a hard time accepting that a magazine style layout wouldn’t reduce sales.

[GayDemon]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

On GayDemon we link the collages for commercial posts directly to the sponsor (non commercial posts are often not linked at all). But we have split up the post into a smaller collage first that’s used on the main pages and archives, then if you want to see more you can click a button below the collage to see the full post with more images (can also click the title). It feels like the right way to do it if you want sponsor clicks. If people really want to see more previews they just click the button below the main collage. I’ve had it like that for a long time and would hesitate to change it now. Never had complaints either, and I do get complaints sometimes about other things.

But function wise, I suppose it makes more sense to link the image to the full blog post. Then everything draws you in. I guess in terms of Google and people clicking around, it’s better to link the image to the full post.

Reading your post again though, not sure if you are saying that’s what most people do now. I did check a few and many seem to do the same thing. Main collage or image goes directly to sponsor.

[SteveParis]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

Now that we’re living in the “mobile” era, I think it’s best to show “teasers” on the front page and a link to go to the front page, this way you can show more posts on it.
On my blog, I post a picture/collage with some text… both link to the sponsor and then I have a link to the FULL post.

For years, I’ve shown the entire posts on my front page, and for years I’ve debated whether or not to change it up and just use teasers. I’ve finally made the jump last year and switched from full posts to teasers on the front page. I went from showing 10 full posts on the front page to 20 teaser posts.

It’s been working well for me.

[pocoloco]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

I think things started to change when “time on site” and “pages per visit” became important ranking tools for Google. Around that time, I have changed most of my blogs from full posts to excerpts, and tried to have people click deeper into my sites.

I know, at that time, my clicks to sponsors went down but ratios and pay per click both went up. I guess lots of people who were previously looking for more previews, accidentally ended up on the sponsor’s site.

I don’t think it had much impact on my total revenue, I just started to send less - but higher quality - traffic.

[dzinerbear]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

@pocoloco;160066

I think things started to change when “time on site” and “pages per visit” became important ranking tools for Google.

That and bounce rates.

All the big blogs used to publish the whole post on the front page, then many of them started switching to excerpts, and I think the herd just followed thinking, “They must know what they’re doing.” I know that I thought. I’ve been doing it this way for a long time and it hasn’t had a negative impact on my sales.

Steve made a good point though: in this world of mobile, do you really want to be loading up a bunch of hugely-long posts on your homepage?

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

@GayDemon;160064

On GayDemon we link the collages for commercial posts directly to the sponsor (non commercial posts are often not linked at all). But we have split up the post into a smaller collage first that’s used on the main pages and archives, then if you want to see more you can click a button below the collage to see the full post with more images (can also click the title).

What you’re doing is a happy medium – so there is a link to the sponsor on the main page. I think I could live with that.

I just ran through the top 10 ranking gay porn blogs and here’s what each does with links on the big preview pic(s):

[LIST=1]

Queer Me Now - no link

Banana Blog - links to blog post

QueerClick - links to sponsor site

Gay Demon - links to sponsor site

Way Big - links to sponsor site

Gay Porn Blog - links to post (just thumbs, no text)

Queer Pig - links to blog post

Fagalicious - links to sponsor site (no jump script!)

[The Blog That Cannot Be Named] - links to post (just thumbs, no text)

Manhunt Daily - links to blog post [/LIST]

So summarizing…

• 1 has no link on the big pic at all (!)
• 5 link to the blog post [LIST]
• Two of just have thumbnails and hence have to link the thumb to the blog post

4 link to sponsor site like you do. [/LIST]

@SteveParis;160065

Now that we’re living in the “mobile” era, I think it’s best to show “teasers” on the front page and a link to go to the front page, this way you can show more posts on it.

@pocoloco;160066

I think things started to change when “time on site” and “pages per visit” became important ranking tools for Google.

Those are really good points and the sort of rationale that can convince me to change.

[QUOTE=SteveParis;160065]For years, I’ve shown the entire posts on my front page, and for years I’ve debated whether or not to change it up and just use teasers. I’ve finally made the jump last year and switched from full posts to teasers on the front page. I went from showing 10 full posts on the front page to 20 teaser posts.

It’s been working well for me.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=pocoloco;160066]I have changed most of my blogs from full posts to excerpts, and tried to have people click deeper into my sites.

I know, at that time, my clicks to sponsors went down but ratios and pay per click both went up. I guess lots of people who were previously looking for more previews, accidentally ended up on the sponsor’s site.

I don’t think it had much impact on my total revenue, I just started to send less - but higher quality - traffic.[/QUOTE]

And those are the sort of testimonials that, while not A/B testing, are probably “good enough” in proving the point of how it affects sales. Plus, if I do what Bjorn and those 3 others do, then I still have the link to the sponsor on the main page.

Thanks guys - that was the sort of feedback I needed.

[GayDemon]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

But what are you planning to do?

I do wonder myself if the current setup I have is any good. I think the way you would assume a blog post to work was image goes to the full post, rather than sponsor driving more clicks into the site. But if you do it must be important to link clearly to sponsor in some other way. Might have to test.

[GayDemon]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

[QUOTE=pocoloco;160066]I think things started to change when “time on site” and “pages per visit” became important ranking tools for Google. Around that time, I have changed most of my blogs from full posts to excerpts, and tried to have people click deeper into my sites.

I know, at that time, my clicks to sponsors went down but ratios and pay per click both went up. I guess lots of people who were previously looking for more previews, accidentally ended up on the sponsor’s site.

I don’t think it had much impact on my total revenue, I just started to send less - but higher quality - traffic.[/QUOTE]

Have you noticed any difference in stats, time on site etc?

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

@GayDemon;160077

But what are you planning to do?

For a while now the format of my blog posts has been a set of pictures, some text, and then more pictures and at least half the time a video. So I’ll change that so just the first set of pictures and the first paragraph gets shown and then a prominent link to “See full blog post…” Links on the images will continue to go to the sponsor. And I’ll up the number of posts on a page from 5 to maybe 8.

Going forward I’ll probably put fewer images in the set of images above the text.

In other words, baby steps - no radical changes.

[conran]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

[QUOTE=rawTOP;160061]
So why have things changed? Why would successful blogs want to make it harder for users to get to the sponsor site?[/QUOTE]

I’ve always assumed that this is because of the various things they’ve heard from Google about ranking factors, especially bounce rates and time on site etc. The idea is that if they have to click deeper into the site to find the link out it increases the time the user is on site and sends Google the message that the site is giving the user more useful and relevant information, thereby increasing the value.

To be honest I think this competes with the idea that you want to give visitors what they’re looking for quickly. Surely if they’re arriving and clicking through to another site you have served your purpose and given them what they were seeking? You can then serve both by providing other posts of interest that do involve clicking through to other pages, or add links to every post for fans of performer to click through to see everything you’ve posted about them (something that I’ve found works well and suits both groups).

I have to take back what I said about Sumome in another thread offered by Bjorn, I reinstalled it to check out the heat maps function and it’s helped me immensely!

I would recommend everyone install Sumome and use heat maps to see where users are clicking. It’s given me a great insight into what I need to move, where links should be, what I can remove from posts completely (reducing links out when they’re clearly rarely clicked). Really guys, it’s a god-send when it comes to seeing how you can deliver info and direct visitors.

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

@conran;160081

To be honest I think this competes with the idea that you want to give visitors what they’re looking for quickly. Surely if they’re arriving and clicking through to another site you have served your purpose and given them what they were seeking?

Yeah, I started testing the changes I detailed above and realized I have a bit of a problem on tag pages. Let’s say I tag a post “Guys with guiches” and the guiche isn’t before the more break in the post – that means the surfer won’t see a guiche when he gets to the page. He’ll have to click on the more link. Ditto for a gangbang scene where I tag it with the name of a porn star who doesn’t appear until a pic after the more link.

I want the more links on the main page of the site. Probably category pages, but how do I not have it on tag pages? I’ll ask my husband when he gets home. He’s better with Wordpress than I am. Maybe he’ll know. This is one more reason why I’d like to get off Wordpress onto something I’ve written myself. (But that’s just one more thing on my very long to do list…)

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

@rawTOP;160085

I want the more links on the main page of the site. Probably category pages, but how do I not have it on tag pages? I’ll ask my husband when he gets home. He’s better with Wordpress than I am. Maybe he’ll know. This is one more reason why I’d like to get off Wordpress onto something I’ve written myself. (But that’s just one more thing on my very long to do list…)

I found the solution to the tag and category problem. Locate the chunk of PHP code that calls the_content() in index.php in your template files and replace it with this:

//override how the_content() works in certain cases
if (is_category()) {
    global $more;    // Declare global $more (before the loop).
    $more = 1;       // Set (inside the loop) to display all content, including text below more.
    the_content();
} elseif (is_tag()) {
    global $more;
    $more = 1;
    the_content();
} else {
    the_content('Read the rest of this blog post');
}

The call to the_content() in else should match what you have currently, but basically what the code does above it turn off the more… functionality in certain cases. I chose categories and tags, but there’s a whole bunch of things you can test against.

And since category and tag pages will still have full posts, I’m keeping to the same number of posts per page.

Now I just need to figure out how to modify it so it says something more compelling when there’s a video in the blog post. I may have to tag it to accomplish that, however.

[Bec]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

chuckling … I was wondering how long it would take for you to tinker with what the more tag call does in the theme’s files!

[housekeeper]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

I still use the full post function on several blogs, I’ve modified each one to have text links, as well as at least for thumbnails that will pop up into full images. So it’s a main image that doesn’t link, text links and full sentence promo link. I also generally use 4-6 posts on the front page, I’m not a fan at all of endless scrolling.

Now I’ll admit the magazine themes were born out of updating themes, and much was determined by style and needs. But I like the full posts showing, and think it does help conversions. I also agree that surfers have become accustomed to the magazine style, and certainly by virtue of the sales pitch in general, you always want them to spend time on your site.

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

Just thought I’d give an update. Long story short, I’m considering going to undo what I did and go back to always showing complete posts. But I’m not sure…

For a number of weeks now I’ve wondered what in the hell is up with my sales… They’ve been anemic. I figured it was just summer and it would pass, but it hasn’t passed. Then looked back and figured out that the problem started in mid-June… Here is a graph of my revenue and initial sales for the weeks from early April to a few days ago…

There are 19 weeks shown there. You can see the big drop 9 weeks ago - around mid-June. So I started looking at my traffic. I took the last 9 weeks and compared it to 9 weeks prior (throwing out the buffer week). Most things looked completely unchanged…

Overall traffic seems incredibly stable…

My tube traffic is stable…

My forum traffic was pretty stable (I hit the 5 pic limit/post, so it’s not shown)…

But then I look at my blog traffic and it’s clearly down…

The only thing that really happened on the blog around that time was changing from full posts to post previews. It’s a little curious that it happened 10 days or so after I did the change, but it also sorta makes sense… 64% of my blog traffic is from Google. When they change their opinion of the site, it has a real impact. A while back I figured out that even though the blog didn’t have as much traffic as my tube site or my forum, it’s responsible for most of my sales. The 10 day delay probably corresponds to Google recrawling and reevaluating the site. It would seem they just don’t like snippets at much as

BUT what’s confusing me is that the only page that Google indexes that has snippets/previews is the home page of the porn blog and that page actually got MORE traffic from Google, not less. I don’t have snippets/previews on the tag and category pages and don’t let them index anything but the first page (e.g. no /page/# pages are indexed – just the first page for each topic).

So I’m confused. It seems Google changed their view of the site about the same time I made the change to previews/snippets, but the one page where I’d expect to see less traffic due to the change, actually has more traffic now. When I look through the analytics to see where Google really dropped traffic it’s to pages like “Red Headed Porn Stars” and “Otters”, and “Piss” and “PNP” and “Muscle Bears”. None of those pages changed with the change to snippets/previews.

So I’m at a loss of what to do. My blog traffic is down. There’s a time correlation to the snippet/preview change, but the other data doesn’t support that being the problem. Maybe Google’s formula changed and they like blog tag and category pages even less now?

[Jay]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

After doing some more research I’m still confused, but will probably NOT revert back to full posts since the problem is with Google and the one page in their index that went to previews got more traffic from them, not less, while overall traffic from them went down. I started another thread about the Google change in mid-June, so probably not good to discuss that here.

[GayDemon]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

Well not sure this helps but sales have been lower or felt very slow since June. I do also remember specially August being very slow where even studios seemed to disappear off and not sending out any content. Then things started to pickup in September both with sales and activity on the paysites and studios.

[gmgp]

Re: Blog Functionality Question

I’m also having a slow August compared to other months.