The undersigned

I’m thinking about my blog’s accessibility, how to browse around it - it’s far from good enough I think. Its not the huge header in it self, it is the way posts are hidden.

I think that it’s good, blogging has opened up doors for many people to share their thought on different topics. But take a look at my site here - 190 posts, hidden in 6 categories. The bottom navigation makes it possible to jump to each category, the 10 most commented posts, the 10 latest posts, and search. But even with those navigation options, people would really have to know what they are looking for, in order to find it.

This accessibility issue is far from new, and every blogging tool is giving their best shot at optimizing it - bringing everything to the »top level« of the site. Sidebars filled with links to categories, tags, archives, a calendar, a search function - everything. A huge step, I think, is the slowly change from categories to tags - the possibility of not being »forced« to pick a category from a given list, when you write a post, but the freedom to write any words you think match your posts content.

I don’t write this, because I know a better way to do it, but I surely would love to get some ideas.

Many blogs use a simple site structure. On the front page, 5-10 latest posts is listed in full length or an excerpt - so is the category/tag pages, archive pages, search result pages etc. From all the different pages it is always possible to jump to any view from an extra navigation (sidebar, bottom navigation etc.). My question is, is it the title or the content that makes people click a post to »read more« - if posts are listed in full length, what is the idea of a single post view besides the possibility to comment?

I think a way to do the first optimizing could be to only show one post in full length on the front page, and let the rest be only titles or small excerpts. That way maybe 20 posts can be shown instead of 10, and take up the same space. The same goes for category/tag pages, archive pages etc, why show the posts in their full lenght? Excerpts lets you show much more.

The next idea is a digg-alike system. Posts are mostly shown, ordered by date - would it be a better idea to order them by popularity? A way to do it, is like I have done in the bottom navigation - show the 10 most commented posts, but thats far from good. We need a more »intelligent« system, a way to combine the most read, most commented, latest commented and most linked(?) posts with their dates, in order to bring the best content to the top level of the site.

In addition to the digg-alike system, maybe it is time for us bloggers to use a landing-site system. Landing sites are well known from the eCommerce world - ever experience you searched google for »cheap colgate toothpaste« and found an online reseller, and the site you landed on from google was exactly about colgate toothpaste? What if we grabbed the google search string from the visitor, and made the front page listing a mix of related posts to what he searched for and the newest posts? It would definitely create a higher click-through-rate on your adsense ads, because they suddenly show »ads related to your posts related to the visitors search string«. It would also increase your pageviews per visitor count, because the content that is looked for is suddenly on the top level of your blog.

Tags or categories? I am still using categories, but when I redesign again, I think I will make the switch to tags. I have tested out tags on a couple of other sites (example), and its given good results - pageviews per visitor increased from ~5 to ~7. I find that tags is the best way to let people browse a blog, finding related posts. In addition to the way I run it at webdesignbook.net, I might want to create a »related tags« list, when people browse the site using tags. Giving your visitors more and more choices of navigation, when they digg deeper into your blog, makes it harder for them to leave the site, and even though many posts share the same tags, the site will feel bigger. By using a tag system it is also easily possible to list 5-10 related posts, at the end of a post. Just list the 10 newest that shares the most tags.

Summary

Ideas to increase pageviews per visitor and »reveal the hidden blog content«:

• Cut down on full length listing of posts and mix with excerpts.
• A digg-alike system, bringing the most popular content to the front.
• Landing sites to bring relevant posts to the top level.
• More navigation options deeper in the blog in addition to the sidebar/bottom navigation:
  • Tags
  • Related tags list
  • Related posts list

Do you have any experience in optimizing websites or blogs in this matter? Other ideas to ensure that the visitors find the things they are looking for?