The More Tag is a crucial tool for WordPress blogging success, and yet over and over I see bloggers forget to use it The More Tag (only available for posts) is a tag that gets inserted into your blog post content to truncate blog entries so that only the first part of posts is shown on your main blog page and archive pages. When you insert the More Tag, a link will be placed directly after your excerpt, pointing the reader to the full content of the article.
You can find the More Tag button in the first row of the WordPress visual editor toolbar:
And in the WordPress HTML editor toolbar:
Here is what it looks like when it is inserted into your posts content in both the visual editor and the HTML editor:
And here is what it looks like on a main bog page:
Why is the More Tag so important?
I know you may be reading this, wondering why the More tag is so important to a blog’s success. The More Tag is the magical tool that makes your blog page display just the first little bit of several different blog posts – like our main blog page www.bourncreative.com/blog.
You can tell when a blogger forgets to use the More Tag because their main blog page is about a mile long and shows several of their articles in their entirety. There is one big problem that arises from displaying your entire blog post on your main blog page: Your readers will never see a "Read More" link, which means that pretty much all of your readers (except a few) will never click-through to the individual page for that post.
Not such a big deal right? After all, the entire article is right there for them to read. WRONG! That is a very big deal.
You see, the ability to leave a comment and read the comments left by others are only available on the actual individual web page for that blog post. Also, in many blog themes, your readers will never see the similar posts, the categories and tags, or the social sharing and bookmarking links on the main blog page. It’s a fact that if you display the entire blog post on your main blog page, many of your readers may not even realize they can leave a comment or click-through to the main page for the post by clicking the post headline!
The More Tag not only makes your blog easier to use and your content easier to scan, but it also makes it easier for your readers to comment, view similar posts, and share the content you worked so hard to create for them. Oh, and frankly blogs that use the more tag are also much more visually appealing! It can also help you keep your readers on your website longer by cutting down on the amount of scrolling the visitor has to do, and making it easier for them to interact with you and your content.
So remember, every time you publish a new post to your blog, make sure you insert the More Tag.
