Are RSS Feed Readers Stopping Our Blog Traffic?

I read a lot about this when I started blogging and my first choice was full feeds, one year later I am convinced that is better (at least for me) to keep readers coming to my blog(s) and take a look of my sponsors and I just changed to partial.

So far the feed readers keep growing, but it really depends of the type of blog you have..

It’s a tough call and the best answer will probably be different for each person/blog..
I’m testing both options on different blogs I run to see which works better, although my personal preference is to not limit the feed to a “summary” as that’s what I would prefer.. MattG

As a reader, I obviously prefer full feeds. Case in point, I have only visited your site once or twice in my entire reading of your site. It is just easier to read your content in Google Reader along with other Wordpress related feeds.

As a blogger on my site that discusses global warming issues, I publish excerpts for my feeds and try to make that excerpt well written enough to interest the click through. If the reader doesn’t like it then there is not much I can do. I find that subscriptions really don’t suffer that much since if the article is interesting it is worth clicking through. If it covers a subject that is not immediately appealing then the first paragraph is enough to make the determination and giving the subscriber more is probably a waste of time.

As a reader, I prefer full feeds. And as a blogger it does not matter since my site has a FeedCount of 1. I can read my own website and not have to wait for all my silly widgets to load. But seriously, a full feed was required for my signing up with BlogBurst.

@ EC: interesting to see that changing over hasn’t affected your readership. I also think you made a great point there saying that it depends on the type of blog we have.

Certain blogs are information only and don’t involve heavy discussions, therefore they should probably publish full feeds. On the contrary, a celebrity gossip blogger might consider partial feeds since many want to take part on the latest gossip about Britney. (That would exclude me however )
@ MattG: I’m the same. It wouldn’t feel right to me to publish partials when I myself can’t stand them.

@ Sean O: the old convenience factor obviously plays a role when we browse feeds. Plus time limitations add to this big time. Thank you for giving me some insight into your behavior too. This is very valuable to know for a blogger.

@ Dr.R: hey, one subscriber is a start. You mentioned your “silly widgets”. Don;t you think that would annoy your readers too then?

I’ve noticed that the MyBlogLog widget loads slowly and I seriously consider taking it off my own blog, since it is quite annoying. Sometimes we seem to put too much weight on all those things, just to have a flash looking blog.

Monika,
My feeling is, that since I signed up for the feed, I am inclined to read it: full or not. I also often find myself clicking thru to the blog, because I can’t see images, tables or video clip prompts to which a blogger may refer. In many instances I want to read the comments, too. (I actually opened up your post to see the comments). So, in my opinion, it depends on how much you are interested in each particular post. As for the feed readers, they are in for the info and I know it.
What I think might help, is to start your post (sometimes) by alluring to the picture you display and why you thought it reflects the topic of the post.

If I would need to think upon complete or partial RSS feed, I would anyways give a complete RSS feed and implement more ideas to attract users to the real blog. Something like rewards for regular visitors or commentators, some contests that needs people to browse the blog thoroughly. This will balance the dilemma of whether to keep readers happy or keep our interests intact.

As a reader I like full feeds. As a blogger I understand the frustrations that come with “giving away” your content with no sponser results to come. One way I’ve attempted to overcome this dilemna is to provide a full feed while linking to other articles on my site with relevent content in the article. So far I’ve had good results as people are starting to navigate around my blog more.

As a reader I, as most everybody else, hate partials. I can’t imagine that ticking off your readers is a good way to go about business. If you’re trying to build long term reader base, then I think the full feed is the better option. If you’re trying to just get a lot of traffic in a “pump and dump” sort of setting then partials would make more sense I’d suspect.

Another thing to consider is that the regular readers of your blog are also less likely to click on advertising anyway, so give the regulars the full feed and build a base. That base of readers will give you a platform for acquiring sponsership (and you can put sponsorship info in the feed. I think Daring Fireball does this).

As for my personal reading habits, I’ll click over to the site if it’s something I either want to comment on, or blog about on one of my own blogs. I also click over if there is embedded video as I usually want that to get completely loaded before I’m bothering to watch, and that’s easier to do in my browser than my reader. Depending on the type of content I may also pre-load a bunch of pages in the browser to get the full picture/layout experience as I’m going through all my feeds, then close down the reader and switch to the browser to read those items.

This must a topic of the moment as I also wrote a post on this only yesterday - http://workingsolo.com.au/2008/please-no-more

As both a reader and blogger I prefer full feeds. The purpose of my blog is to share information and develop a relationship with readers and I find that this is best achieved in giving them what they want as easily as possible. I don’t have ads on the site and find that I’ve generated more income by readers becoming clients.

@ Lana: you made a great point there Lana. This shows that it helps to use images and tables then. Plus having a lively comment section certainly helps to bring readers back to the blog.

@ LiC: I like your idea on contests and rewards. That is why I did a link love post a little while back. To reward regular readers and commenter’s. That reminds me, it is time for another one and I’ve got this very person in mind.
@ Damien: thanks for your input. Interlinking is something I also regularly do, but I just had to find out that not everybody is fond of it.

@ Charles: great comment, thank you very much. Like you, I think along the same ways. I personally prefer to build a relationship with my readers and like to offer full feed on my blogs.

Some people told me that was silly but I disagreed and did it anyway. Judging by my comments I can’t complain and know that I did the right thing after all.

@ Leah: I loved your soapbox moment and you made some strong and valuable points there. A great way to look at this from the other side of the gap, hopefully making people think.

@ everyone: thanks so much for all your input. I think it is save to say that we are pretty much all in favor of full feeds - just like I hoped we would be.

Hopefully this will help new bloggers decide which way to go to.

Thanks Monika for keeping me in mind :). By the way, your Top commentators list is showing number of comments for whole month I think.

Either need to change it to weekly comments or change the text to “Most active commentators for the past month”.