Hi Kay,
We’re glad to hear about the readers you get from BlogBurst – ideally, the readers you get from those placements will grow your readership base and ultimately your traffic. We’re always looking for ways that we can bring more benefits to our bloggers, and hope to continue adding more and more value for you through BlogBurst!

What you see as rude, I see as useful info. I am a Table of Contents person. And to me, a blurb is all I need and usually want to see. Maybe it’s my newspaper and online publication background, but I want a quick hit — a headline, a couple of sentences — to see if I want to spend more time with you. If I do, I have no problem making one more click.

As for the ads, you and my husband are of like minds. He hates them, fast forwards them, mutes them, curses them. Me, they don’t bother so much. I look at one of my favorite sports, auto racing, as the business model. I understand that someone has to pay the bills, so ads on a car or fire suit or blog don’t offend me.

And I do have ads on my site, which is another reason I hate full feeds. Visitors to my blog don’t necessarily have to click on the ads for them to do me good. Just opening up my page where the ads are helps me. But with the full RSS feed and/or the BlogBurst posting, readers don’t see my ads or other features in my nav bars

My goal for the ads is that they provide me enough income to help cover the cost of my blogging service (I don’t use a free one because I like having a bit more control). That goal is being met — got a $127 check today, in fact — and I get enough to also enjoy an occasional dinner out on my ad money.

I know people say that full feeds don’t limit visits to a blog, but personally I think they do. And fewer visits to my site mean less ad revenue for me. My click-throughs from BlogBurst are negligible. I’d think it was me, except for the fact that I get big bumps in traffic — much more so than any BlogBurst publication has given me — when another blogger simply mentions my site and links back to one of my posts.

Those directly referred readers don’t have a problem clicking through to my original posting. But readers of the posting at a BlogBurst client or via RSS full feed apparently don’t see a need to visit. And I don’t blame them. The old free milk vs. buying the cow cliché comes to mind.

And finally — yes, I’m wrapping it up — let’s be honest about full feeds. The reason BlogBurst clients want the full feeds for their sites is that they want blogger copy on their pages to fill up their pages … which have ads and for which they get the revenue, vs. me getting revenue if someone came directly to me.

All that said, bottom line is I don’t like full feeds. I continue to debate whether to it’s worth it to keep giving away the milk via BlogBurst. For now, I guess I’ll stay. But …

My preference is no full feed. But then, my blog has ads (and other components in my nav bars) and revenue I get from the ads, and I do get some (one check arrived today), depends on people going to my page. When they get the feed, either via RSS or from the BlogBurst version, I get readers but no moolah. Not to be crass, but a girl’s gotta live!

I get better click-throughs and corresponding readership bumps (and $$$) when my posts are mentioned by other bloggers outside the BlogBurst sphere.

Does that mean I’ll leave BlogBurst. I’ve been struggling with this since signing up, but I’m still here so … Guess I’ll just keep evaluating my participation.
Kay

They already read that particular post on the BlogBurst feed; I think it’s easier for readers to go to my front page to “read more.”

Thanks!

Here’s the deal: I never click on ads (I usually mute them on the TV as well.) I won’t do you any good as an ad-clicker. I’ll do you a lot more good (and talk about you more, and link to you more) as a valued member of your blog’s community who is treated with respect and enjoys reading your good content.