I think the monthly roundup is a good idea. I hope you’ll format it well to be readable

People seem to be split on whether or not they like these roundup posts. You can see it in the comments here and the division holds true for people who have mentioned it to me through emails. I’m beginning to understand why based on some of the comments above.

I think some who see these posts only as a series of links think “ho hum, another post with links.” In that case I can see where the number of links is overwhelming. Some are seeing the post. Others see the links as a time saver in that I’ve filtered out some of the noise and made their weekly reading a little easier.

Some like Bill are less interested in the links themselves and more interested in the writing around the links. I’ve always tried to make the writing around the links interesting, but hadn’t considered it might be a reason someone would like the post.

It’s okay; those were the least interesting posts you made. They’re important, and it’s nice to have them summarized and categorized … but there’s only so much time and brainpower I can devote to seo when I don’t do it as a living. Most of your other posts are more accessible; they use familiar metaphors to draw the reader uncharted waters. They’re not at all overwhelming, which This Week can be at tmies.

I usually have a few links on landing page optimization in the design section if you want to look back a few posts. Otherwise check out Robertea’s posts at Copywriting Maven.

@Kristine – They definitely have become time consuming. Sadly a little too time consuming. I’m thinking one a month can still be valuable and be something I can keep up with. I know these aren’t your favorite posts so it’s all good for you.

I have to confess, those posts were probably the ones I read least often anyway. I guess I’m more a one topic at a time sort of girl.

BTW, what do you have on landing page optimization?

The time consuming part for me is finding all the signal in the noise. I’ve been trying to come up with a better way to get through my feeds every week without success.

@Bill – I think you were the first person to visit after the first post and I was thinking about your reaction when I was writing this post. I have been trying since the beginning to move away from the same dozen or so blogs and will hopefully continue to do the same. It is one of the reasons my reading time keeps increasing, though.

However, if I’m hearing you right, you like these posts less for the specific links and more for the commentary around the links. As long as I can maintain a good signal to noise ration it’s probably not all that important which links are included.

You’ve both given me a few things to muse over. I’m not sure how I can keep up with the weekly schedule without reducing the time I spend reading feeds, but I’m beginning to think I might not have to read so slavishly to be able to write this post. I’ll likely take stick with my plan to make this post a monthly for December, though I’ll think more about whether or not I can bring it back on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule.

I’m going to miss the weekly roundups, but if making the change gives you a chance to work on other projects that you want to get involved with, then it’s a good change.

I like the idea of you linking to lesser known blogs. I think that’s a terrific idea.

I have liked how you tie together ideas and concepts in the series, and join together different themes. I subscribe via RSS to a lot of the blogs that you link to in the weekly posts, so I’ve seen many of the posts that you link to. It’s really the commentary that you add, and the grouping of posts that I find a lot of value in. And the occasional post that you’ve uncovered that I might not have seen.

You realize of course that reading the entire post and all of the linked articles would probably take a couple of hours? The great thing about it is that it’s an overview with a high signal to noise ratio that you can use to catch up on whatever looks interesting without wading through all the echo – not necessarily to read everything that it links to.

Anyway, I’m sure that the monthly roundup will be just as good.