Comments on: The Importance of ‘Pause Points’ On Your Blog

By: whybuymadeinusa dot com

whybuymadeinusa dot com — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:35:28 +0000

This reminds me of the “Getting Things Done” concept of Next Actions. What would be a good heading for this section? “Related Reading:” isn’t always right because sometimes the action is viewing a video, visiting an online store, or subscribing to an RSS feed.

How about “Related Things To Do:” or “Things To Do Next:”. Any suggestions on this would be helpful for the discussion.

Thanks.

By: Reginald

Reginald — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:15:50 +0000

B. Durant,

I think that we all could benefit from a little extra effort invested in thinking outside the box.

In my opinion, this post is a gentle reminder of that.

By: MBL

MBL — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:14:30 +0000

Here’s a wild suggestion for you to take it one step further with your heat map experiments.

Use the heat maps to see if there is any pause points in the comments where a reader left a comment that got the most click thru and why those comments worked the best.

It would take some experimenting to do but I think it would help us better understand why commenting can be a useful tool to drive traffic and how.

By: StocksHaven dot Com

StocksHaven dot Com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:41:37 +0000

My guess is that we are used to reading from left to right so therefore have begun to co-relate it to the most activity! Interesting find / post… keep up the good work.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:33:00 +0000

I’ve used Crazy Egg for similar research on my blogs and have found that the height of the page usually isn’t an issue. With a lot of readers using their mouse’s scroll wheel, it’s easy to go from top to bottom with minimal effort. For a casual or non-regular reader, it’s far more likely that they’ll “skim” the page with speed as opposed to being burdened by a browser scrollbar.

I know I use this method all of the time when I’m more interested in the outcome or discussion within a particular article than I am with getting every last detail. That usually lands me in the “pause point” fairly quickly on a majority of the blogs I read. :)

Thanks for the article and research, good stuff!

By: B. Durant

B. Durant — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:18:47 +0000

I’ve always subscribed to the notion that people are far less likely to click the further along the page they get. Apparently that isn’t always the case. I’ll have to make some adjustments in my thinking and see what I can come up with.

By the sounds of it I’m going to assume that the longer an article is the more useful this method will be?

By: Lenin Nair

Lenin Nair — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:24:29 +0000

Informative, Darren.

About the sharing button, I have enabled a little snippet requesting bookmarking and subscribing at the end of each post in my blog, as well as a little Addthis code. Feedburner is showing ads right below it.

I have experienced that this below post ad is getting some clicks due to its advantage of being below posts. However, in my last design the adsense code placed on the top of the posts got clicked the most. Now, in the new design, I feel it inappropriate to place adsense above posts. So there is only a side big rectangle.

Your heatmap details are very good, it is a great addition to the video post you are running these days.

By: Erica Brooks

Erica Brooks — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:55:49 +0000

Helpful post. I recently added a related post plugin and will definitely look into using your suggestions on other options to use at my pause points. Thanks for sharing.

By: Slevi

Slevi — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:10:46 +0000

Ooh, I fall under one of those people who clicks on links at the end of the posts. Reason to click on particularly those links is quite simple for me; it saves me from scrolling back up!

On the internet it’s funny and all how we place links in the midst of our texts, but when people are reading do they really want to click away in the middle of the text? I know I barely click on any of them, just read down and there I surf on further.

By: dandellion Kimban

dandellion Kimban — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:50:50 +0000

LOL. That was a nice example of automated post. Spammer!

By: Reginald

Reginald — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:27:08 +0000

I found this post to be quite thought provoking.

It certainly proves a widely accepted theory to be, at the minimum, questionable.

Your post also cause me to wonder what else needs some rethinking?

Thanks for providing the gently push. It’s a nice reminder as to why someone should think out of the box.

By: Vickie Njoku Onyekuru

Vickie Njoku Onyekuru — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:34:39 +0000

Hi Darren
This is a wonderful post you have here, its very informative, educative yet communicating the idea behind it to all. I wish l could master this art of blogging and ads.
Wish you luck.

By: Faiz

Faiz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:38:22 +0000

That is a very interesting point which I have read for the first time. working on pause points will be helpful.

By: kafkaz

kafkaz — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:10:18 +0000

I love the heat maps. Neat idea. I do think it’s good to keep in mind, though, that activity at the end of a post can also tell us something about the way people read, and especially something about the way they read online. When I’m blog hopping, I’m often looking for something very specific, and will skim until I find that. If key bullet points and links are at the end of the post, I’ll go there, but that doesn’t always indicate engagement with the rest. (Present blogger excluded, of course!) Totally agree that it might be smart to bury your bounce points (and to set them to launch in a separate tab), but I’d encourage other heat map makers to analyze the results very carefully in the context of their own blogging purposes. Readers are tricky, very tricky!

By: Rob Walters

Rob Walters — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:30:37 +0000

Really good info.

Thanks…..Rob Walters
BunkerShot.com GOLF

By: Wayne Tully

Wayne Tully — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:35:21 +0000

I like the idea of creating a tracking solution for the pause points that you highlighted, this sounds quite right in terms of finding where they clicked and what is popular on your blog, but what of password protected pages? does this remain the same, I mean can this tool or any other pass this obstacle?

By: B Clarke

B Clarke — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:24:06 +0000

Darren,

Thanks for yet another great post. For low traffic hobby bloggers it’s tough to ever get information like this from our own sites because we don’t get enough traffic to suss these things out, but there’s nothing like a heat map to convince me.

BTW, congrats on your new baby.

By: Noobpreneur

Noobpreneur — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:46:15 +0000

Darren,

This post brings better, more ’scientific’, understanding why bloggers are encouraged to put call-to-action messages at what you describe as pause point.

Cheers for the good post!

By: PotPieGirl

PotPieGirl — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:59:21 +0000

I Love Heat Maps! Thanks for showing us a sample of yours! When you are so heavily invested in your own blog, it is SO hard to stay ‘objective’ and see it as a reader sees it. Heat maps give us a view of how others interact on our blogs… what a valuable tool!

The ‘pause points’ you refer to are what I call my ‘what now?’ points….. also referred to as a ‘call to action’ I like them at the end of my posts. As another commentor pointed out, if a reader gets to the end of your post, they are invested in your topic. That is best place to provide a call to action and help the reader find more things that will interest them.

This is a great and insightful post – thank you for sharing!

Jennifer
PotPieGirl.com

By: Chuck Russell

Chuck Russell — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:45:59 +0000

Great information and very cool heat maps! That would be a cool user experience to show heat maps in real time on pages. Thanks for sharing.