Archive for February, 2009
When you write a page or post in WordPress, you have the option to also write a short summary, known as an Excerpt. That summary is used by those who follow your blog and by Google Alerts. How you write the title and summary will help determine how many readers will see that article.
Most news readers allow showing only the post summary instead of the entire article. That feature allows busy people to see what your article is about before loading the entire page in their reader or browser.
If you have your site set up to alert the article and news directories each time you post a page or article, Google Alerts will find you. When they do, the title, author and summary are shown to those who watch for certain keywords. The title is linked to your artile.
When writing the summary, keep the number 229 in mind. That is the maximum number of characters Google uses to display your summary in the alerts they send out. Writing your most compelling introduction in that summary will determine whether people will click to your site.
Skip writing a summary at your peril. I missed writing a summary a few times, thinking that Google would list the first paragraph like it does in the search engine listings. That is not true for news and blogs alerts. Without a summary, 229 characters of your navigation menu will be used for the description.
If you use Yahoo! Alerts, you are limited to 82 characters. You also have to tell Yahoo! which sites you want to monitor, instead of simply watching for keywords like you do with Google.
The title is most important, followed by the summary. Write both well and you can increase your readership within 24 hours. If you time it right, you could see your news item announced within 20 minutes in Google Alerts.
