One of the most important sources of traffic to your blog is WordPress Reader. It is a built-in feed where WordPress users discover contents, follow blogs, and read new posts without visiting each site individually.
It’s enabled by default for all WordPress.com sites. If you self-hosted WordPress, you’ll need the Jetpack plugin for your posts to appear there. To make sure your full post shows up in the Reader, go to:
Settings > Reading > Feed
and select Full Text.
Showing full posts in the Reader can increase engagement, since readers don’t need to leave the Reader to sell your full content. This can feel like a drawback if your primary goal is driving visitors to your website.
Best practice:
If your audience actively uses WordPress Reader, full text usually works better. You can balance this by keeping newsletter emails shorter:
Settings > Newsletter > Post Email > Excerpt
This way, Reader users get the full content, while email subscribers still have a reason to click through.
Internal Links in WordPress Reader
It’s generally good practice to use relative (partial) URLs for internal links inside posts, such as:
/2025/01/post-name
/category/category
This approach has several advantages:
- Easier to maintain if you ever change your domain
- Slightly better performance
However, there’s an important caveat. WordPress Reader often treats relative URLs as if they belong to its own domain. As a result, links may appear like this:
wordpress.com/2025/01/post-name
instead of:
your-domain.com/2025/01/post-name
yourblog.wordpress.com/2025/01/post-name
Until this behavior changes, you have two options:
- Use absolute (full) URLs for internal links (not ideal)
- Continue using relative links but ensure your audience is aware of this limitation
Personally, I stick with relative URLs and accept the quirk. It’s manageable and works better in the long run.
Do you actively rely on WordPress Reader as a traffic source?
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