Posts per page for blogs...
 

Anyone come up with an optimal number of post per page for blogs? 10? 5? 20? doesn't matter?

just getting some ideas..

depends on how long of posts you write. I don't like outrunning my sidebars by too much.

Writing long posts just gives you more ad space!

I've pretty much stayed at 10 although I've played around with different settings.

I used to have the default 10 but reduced it to 5 because it made the page too long compared to my sidebars. Overall, I suggests that you keep the contents area almost proportional to your sidebars, a little longer than the sidebars won't hurt either. Check out my blog Bumble Angelz and you'll get the idea of what I mean!

I agree that having very long sidebars when you go to the post view or archive view can be silly. It also puts some things, such as critical navigational links, sometimes out of view. Because most people reach a blog through a post, losing your navigation down the sidebar just means the visitor will be more likely to bounce if they don't buy, negating the benefits of the more labor intensive blog format - compared to static HTML, alternative CMS formats, directories, and/or gallery listings.

The solution is to build custom sidebars for Index, Archive, and Post. It allows one to both maximize available ad space and optimize the traffic pattern within the site once the visitor hits on an SE link for a post. In that case, 6-10 posts on the front page are good, depending on length of the post (although it is more SE friendly to use the "more" tag but also begets supplying additional content). If using the more button, one can control length of the posts on the Index page and get a consistent sidebar result, which is preferrably fairly long to optimize advertising space.

All of this is easier said than done as some themes are very difficult to execute custom sidebars. Consequently, I only have about half of my blogs configured that way, but they are the most productive half.

Thanks for the replies...seems like you're trying to keep the post and sidebar ads close in length. I looked at doing dynamic sidebars once, but it's just too much code for me. I wish more theme makers would make this available.

On my blogs I usually do 10 posts per page. Even if it outruns the sidebars, most of the important stuff is in the top of the side bar anyway so it doesn't really make that much of a deal.