Constant-Content.com recommends that at least one third of an article submission be copied and pasted into its “long summary” field. This is the sample text that customers see when browsing for articles. While some writers post the entire article, others prefer to show a sample.
If you choose to display only a portion of your article, make sure that you make it obvious that the sample is an excerpt. Otherwise, customers may think that what they see is what they get. They could think your article is choppy (because you selected bits and pieces), extremely thin on substance (because you cut off the article before any key points were discussed), or that it just ends without a clean conclusion (because you didn’t display the final few paragraphs). If customers think any of these thoughts, do you think that they’ll be compelled to click the Buy Now button?
Avoid this problem by telling customers that the text continues. Type in phrases such as:
- (End of excerpt. . .)
- (End of sample. . .)
- (Article continues. . .)
- (Discussion continues. . .)
- (Article goes on to discuss ____, ____, and ___ before concluding with ____.)
What do you usually do? (I post the full article most of the time.) Please share your thoughts below.
