Here’s a little trick that will instantly get more traffic to your WordPress blog if, like me, you prefer to get notification emails whenever a blog you follow publishes a new post.
- Go to your blog’s dashboard
- On the lefthand side menu, click on WP Admin
- Click on ‘Settings’
- Click on ‘Reading’
- Next to ‘For each article in a feed, show’ click the ‘Summary’ box.
- Click on ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page
Now, whenever you publish a new post, instead of the whole post being visible on the email (which followers can read without visiting your blog), they will need to click on the link in the email to be able to view and read the whole post on your blog. This will register as a new view in your blog stats.
Here’s an example of an email I get from WordPress when Suzie, at Suzie Speaks, publishes a new blog post. She already uses the above method.
As you can see, I have to click on the ‘Read more of this post’ link to be able to read the whole post.
There are many blogs I follow where I can read the whole post on the email without having to visit their blog.
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Hugh's Views & News 
Reblogged this on Author Steve Boseley – Half a Loaf of Fiction and commented:
Here’s a handy little tip i knew nothing about. All this time I’ve been doing it wrong! Thanks, Hugh!
Brilliant tip, Hugh… off to change mine…
You’re welcome. Your comment went to my WordPress spam folder. No idea why, but I do check the spam folder a few times a day just in case anyone ends up in there by mistake.
I tend to forget that WP has such a thing…
Thanks, Hugh! 🙂 Sharing…
Thanks so much, Bette.
This is interesting, Hugh. I must look and see how mine is set.
Yes, do, Robbie. I’m sure I’m able to read your whole post in the emails I get from your blog.
Reblogged this on The Write Stuff and commented:
Been meaning to share this post from Hugh’s Views and News for a some time, and finally, here it is! If you want a quick, easy way to get more people to stop by your blog, and you haven’t already done this, your eally should check it out. For some reason, even though I’ve been blogging about 15 years, I’d never even noticed this option. Instead of sending out emails to your followers with your entire post included, you can change your settings send a quick summary with a “Read More of This Post” notice. This will be old news to many of you, but for the rest, Hugh shows you how, and it’s EASY-PEASY! Check it out for full instructions. And thanks, Hugh! 🙂
Great advice here, especially about the “summary” option…I have more than 3,000 followers and all were getting the entire story from me in the notification email!
Thanks, John. This is something which WordPress doesn’t seem to advertise much. And to think that all it takes is a ‘click’. You should see your visitor stats go up after making the change.
I can’t wait to see! Thanks again!
This is a small but effective hint everyone can adjust in seconds. I got about 10% more clicks on my blog just by switching to it.
Great tip. Good blog. Definitely come back.
Thank you. I’m glad it helped.
Thank you for this – the Story Reading Ape sent me here in a comment on a post I’d written about why your stats don’t show how many people are actually reading your stuff. I am experimenting with it myself and will see if it has a marked effect on my readers. If I do, and I blog about it, I will link back to here to acknowledge you.
Hi Liz. That sounds like an interesting post. I’ve recently written a post about the ‘like’ button and have been amazed by how many people have left comments saying they don’t necessarily press the ‘like’ button to say they’ve read the post. Unfortunately, the stats we get may show how many people have visited our blogs, but they don’t show how many read the posts and how long they stayed on our blogs. I tend to look at the number of comments as this generally gives me a good idea as to how many actually read the post. It’s got me thinking, and I’ll certainly be writing a followup post about it.
Thanks to Chris for sending you to my blog and, if it does happen, thanks for linking to my post.
I’ve added a link to the bottom of my original post here https://libroediting.com/2018/03/14/why-are-my-blog-statistics-so-low/ I exhort people to add a Like button to their comments, as I love the way it acknowledges having seen the comment, but I read a fellow blogger writing about removing the Like button altogether because she felt it was mainly used by unconnected folk trying to get a click through / reciprocal like. So it takes all sorts!
Thank you for the link to this post, Liz. I’ve read your article and left a comment. I agree with what your fellow blogger says about the ‘like’ button. However, I’ve kept it at the end of comments because, like you, it’s a great way of acknowledging that I’ve seen and read the comment when I’ve nothing further to add.
I’m still trying to figure out how to get my Instagram to show up in the side. lol. if you have articles on that that would be helpful too!
Unfortunately, I don’t. However, all you need to do is add the ‘Instagram’ widget to your widget bar. Click on ‘widgets’ under ‘Appearance’ on the dashboard of your blog, and you’ll find the Instagram widget there.
Let me try that! i am pretty sure ive attempted this because I have other widgets on my side bar now. i just added /wp-admin to the end of my URL to get to the dashboard, i couldn’t find it for the longest time it wasn’t like in your picture for me!
i’ve done well over 100 posts on my blog and I feel like this will be a big help to get people to visit my pretty blog! thanks so much for the step by step, I’m doing it right now so I can see how the first month of March with this tip works out, and i’ve got a big cup of coffee while I explore your blog for more helpful posts
Those who have subscribed to your blog by email will no longer be able to read the whole of your posts in those emails when you change the setting outlined in this post. They will have to visit your blog to read the whole post, which means more traffic to your blog. I hope you see some great results.
This is interesting, because just the other day I was going through my settings and paused when I stumbled upon this particular one. It doesn’t say anything about the emails. It just says the “feed”, and I’ve read that views in the Reader now count towards your stats. (I still prefer to visit people’s sites and read their stuff there, because some of the formatting is lost in the “Reader” version.) Thanks for the suggestion.
It also works for the email notifications. I can often read whole blog posts from the email, giving me no reason to visit the blog. However, the formatting of the emails can look awful, so I think it’s yet another good reason to change this setting. I don’t use the WP reader because I was always finding myself trying to get to the top of it and never being able too. However, I do like that WordPress now merge posts together on the WP Reader when those bloggers who publish more than one blog post every couple of hours go ‘trigger happy’ on the publish button.
Oh, yes, I agree as to the merge of trigger happy posts. Definitely helps keep me (somewhat) sane.
Thank you! I didn’t really know that’s what those settings meant before. Have a great day!
You’re welcome, Shannon. Enjoy the rest of the week.
Hugh, it looks like this post is helping a lot of WP.com bloggers so we should feature this on the next Blogger’s Pit Stop so that more bloggers can see this tip to help increase their traffic.
Kathleen
Blogger’s Pit Stop
Hi, Kathleen. Thank you so much. I’m delighted that you think so. I’m always happy to help with my blogging tips.
Interesting, Hugh. I’ll have to check that out. When I publish my posts, I add the “break line” which prompts the tag “read more”, so people have to click on that to read the post on my blog and, it keeps the blog entries on my main page shorter. I think this is also how it shows up in emails, with the “read more” link in there.
The ‘break line’ method was also mentioned by another blogger when I first published this post, Liesbet. I had no idea what it was until she told me, but I can confirm that it does show up in the emails. However, do you have to remember to keep adding a page break in each post?
Yes, you do have to remember to put those breaks in every time. I might have forgotten in the past. 🙂
Thank you once more Hugh. X
You’re very welcome, Ellen. 😀
This is a cool little tip! Thank you for sharing!
You’re very welcome.
A great tip, Hugh. I love these blogging hints as they really are so useful.
Thanks, Judy. I’ll be republishing all my previous blogging tips posts via ‘Press This’ (in conjunction with Throwback Thursday) over the coming months.
This is an absolutely brilliant tip, Hugh! I have already made the change in my setting. I can’t wait to ‘test out’ the results!
Great. I hope you get some great results from it, Donna. I certainly have. 😀
I’ve wondered how to do this, and had never rolled up my sleeves and stuck my head under the hood long enough to figure it out. Thanks for this great tip!
You’re welcome, Michele.
Thanks Hugh I didn’t realize I could do this 💜💜
It’s a secret WordPress don’t seem to like sharing, Willow. I hope you get great results from it.
Thanks Hugh I am in your debt again 💜💜💜💜
Thanks, Hugh! You are a wealth of information! I will certainly be doing this more often especially with longer posts. hugs xx
You’re welcome, Janice. Once you make the change in your blog’s dashboard, you won’t have to change it again. It will be there for good (unless you change it back again). 😀
Hi A good tip. I think it all depends on the template of the newsletter your use. I use Mailpoet and just has a link to the post and blog, so unable to read post in email.
This tip only seems to apply to those that have WordPress.com blogs. I’m not sure if there is a plugin for those that have self-hosted sites where they can change the settings so that email notifications only show part of the post. I use Yahoo for my emails and pleased to say that the emails I get from bloggers you have changed the setting in their dashboard only show part of the post. It will certainly depend on which template you use for email.
Thanks, Hugh, I wasn’t aware of this procedure. You’re a gem!
You’re very welcome, Jacquie.
I’m just seeing this post for the first time. Just did it. I’ll be interested to see what I’ve been missing out on. Thanks Hugh!
Now I’ll have to visit your blog to be able to read your posts, Phil. So, you’ll see a few more views from me at least. 😀
Thanks Hugh!
Thanks for the tip, Hugh! I think this is the third time in the last two weeks that you’ve helped me, via your blog tips, to add better functionality to my blog.
You’re very welcome. I’ll be sharing my older blogging tips posts over the coming months for those new to my blog. I hope they will also act as reminders to those that have been following my blog for the last few years.
Thanks for the tip Hugh. I did not realize that sending the whole post in the email would affect readership.
If I can read the whole post in the email and don’t have anything to say in the comments, then I don’t need to visit the blog, Colline. However, if I do want to comment then I would have to visit and it would then register as a visit. However, this simple change means that anyone wanting to read the whole post would have to visit the blog to read it all. I still get lots of WordPress email notifications where I can read the whole post in the email. No need to visit the blog unless I want to comment. 😀
You still need to visit to click ‘Like’, though.
True. However, I’ve now stopped using the like button just to show that I’ve visited. Unless I’ve actually read a post and really enjoyed reading it, then I no longer press the ‘like’ button. Perhaps a great subject for another post?