Blog Entries: link thumbs to a gallery to tour?
 

I'm a bit confused by the practice of people linking all the thumbs in blog entries to a gallery page. This is just one more step in enabling freeloaders. I usually just have one large thumb for the entry that links directly to tour, another method would be having 2-5 thumbs, with all but one linked directly to the images (the last sending to your).

Your thoughts?

I don't get it either

why would I make a blog post, then have the user click the thumbs to end up at a gallery, to then have to click again to end up at a tour?

The blog post is made to sell the site, there doesn't need to be one more step involved to make the user click, it just chases them away IMO

links need to be pointed to the tour, not to some shitty galleries

I believe the idea is bookmarks...

they really get some use of the blog... It will compromise the conversion rate (hits on site : signups) but you will get a lot more visits and might even get some word of mouth traffic if the blog is real good...

but I am new to blogging so I don't really know, but that was the thoughts I gave it before starting.

i have always linked to galleries. ill have to give linking to tours a try see how it does.

Works great for me by using the above disliked method. :1orglaugh
I use several methods when making my own posts, but the one which converts best is blog > gallery > tour, which is probably why they stick with it. You have to understand that the reason why the surfer is at your free blog is because it's just that, free. They need to be extremely enticed to sign-up to said site. Of course you can't give away too much, or too little, but you do need to give them something, and a few little thumbnails will not cut it.

It makes as much sense as calling a TGP a blog because they used wordpress to put it on.

have you tried linking the thumbs to the actual size pictures and pointing all links to the tour?

does FAR better for me than galleries

galleries are for tgp's, blogs sell the site, so when they get to the tour they are ready to buy

Yea, I've tried pretty much ever method I can. It works, but I guess I just need to make more of them to see how well that method does compared to the blog > gallery > tour method. I do have far more blog > gallery > tour posts than blog > tour so that could definitely be the reason why I see better ratios with blog > gallery > tour.

do tgps and mgps link directly to tours?

no huge blogs link directly from their blog posts to a tour. there is a reason for it.

why would they? people go to a tgp/mgp to see galleries

a blog is NOT a tgp, and thus should not be treated as such

a tgp is there to give free shit away and HOPE that someone buys

a blog is there to sell the user on the site and SHOW him where to buy

the only blogs I can find that link to galleries then a tour are the ones runs by guys that also create galleries or the guys that mainly do tgp's and decided to start a few blogs

The blog must be interesting for a surfer. There should be some good free stuff on it (i.e. picture and movie galleries). Only in this case the surfer will bookmark your blog (tell a friend about it etc) and will be visiting it daily.

try both styles and make your decision - i've done it both ways - depends on your traffic sources, blog styles, niches etc etc etc ....

there are as many approaches as there are blogs ... not a very either/or medium ... lots of flexibility in how to market ...

I totally agree, as with anything, the way you sell your goods might not work for someone else selling their goods

more clicks to sponsors = higher conversions
more clicks to sponsors = more cash

I prefer to have higher conversions over low conversions from the galleries lol!

If you build your own galleries as sales tools, then why not link to them from a corresponding blog entry on the same domain? I started a blog just to create entries that describe galleries/girls to get some more search traffic.

What is the blog? If it links straight to a tour, then isn’t it more of a short review site.

One blog entry a day linking to a gallery can not be compared to a gallery post with 20 to 40 new galleries listed a day.

Many of my blogs are created to pump nothing but straight SE traffic.

I've experimented with the blog > tour method as well as the blog > gallery > your method.

I sometimes find that the best mix is to make some most of the posts straight to tour, as well as a couple posts to galleries to give the surfer somthing to sink his teeth into.

If the site is mainly videos, and you can't embed them into your blog posts, then definitely link them to some galleries...

Selling people on the sites is a good theory and all but how many people are actually reading the text?

I guess it depends on your traffic. If you're using blog text strictly for SE's, it's not like you're going for results like "porn blog" with people trying to read erotica, it's going to be regular keywords.

I generally don't target many terms with "blog" in them. I generally rely on the tour to sell the site, and not sample galleries. It works fine for me :thumbsup

I've tried every method I can think of.

Post - Gallery - tour is the one that works the best, if you link straight to the tour, they just bypassed the reason they went to your blog. traffic suffered on my blogs that went straight to tour, whereas my blogs that use galleries in the post are steadily moving up, and making a lot more money per surfer..

Interesting thread:) Makes you think...

bump for this

I do them both....the ones that link directly to tours and the ones when I review gallery and give the surfers pic or two and leave them to checkout full gallery for more.

But mostly I just link to tour....and it's productive :thumbsup

Just my 2cc.