As a blogger, one of your options when you post is to use what’s called the “more” tag.  If you have ever seen one of those links on a blogger’s home page that comes at the end of an entry and says “Read more here” or “See full post”, you know what I’m talking about.

Basically the more tag allows you to post an excerpt of your entry on your home page, and then if the reader wants to see more, they have to click the link to see the rest of your article.

How to Use it on Your Blog

Here are instructions for how to use the more tag:

• Write your post as usual.
• Click where you want the break to be.  Many people include the first paragraph or first five lines or so on the home page.
• Look for the “insert more tag” button.  It is on the tool bar / editor at the top, usually next to the alignment buttons, the hyperlink buttons, etc.
• Click it
• A line should appear, dividing your post in two

If you are using Live Journal, it will be called an “LJ Cut” instead of a “more tag”.

There are several advantages and disadvantages to using the more tag on your blog.  Ultimately you’ll have to decide what the best option is for you.  What do your readers expect to see when they come to your blog?

For the occasion, I have insert a more tag myself so you can see the result.  Read about the advantages and disadvantages.

Consequences of using the More Tag

There are a few distinct advantages to using the more tag, which I will get to in a moment.  However, at least from the perspective of making money on your blog, I’ve always been a little cynical towards using them.

1. Possible Loss of Readers

When you only post an excerpt of an entry, you are putting a lot of faith in your reader.  There’s no guarantee that they will continue to read your post, no matter how eloquent or eye opening it really is.  The smaller the excerpt, the less of a chance you’ll convince the reader to read your post. Excerpts can really only act as extended headlines.  You need to make sure that your “lead”, or first sentence, is exciting enough to gain your readers attention and get them to click through.

2. Hides most important asset: your content

Your content is essentially what keeps your readers coming back, what insures a high volume of traffic to your blog and therefore a necessity to gaining popularity and a higher page rank – all of which are necessary to make more money on your blog.

So what are you doing if you decrease the amount of actual content on your main page?

3. Possible Loss of Advertisers?

Furthermore, consider whether you are using paid reviews.  Much of what the advertiser gains from his or her ad is the page rank from the front page of your blog.  So if you use the “more” tag, what is an advertiser for a paid review really gaining?

Advantages of using the more tag

However I recently read an article on blogworld.com about the benefits of using the more tag.  While I’m not completely converted, these are some very great points that made me reevaluate the more tag and change my perspective.

1. More Content Variety

The tag allows you to post more entries on your home page.  So while you may have less actual words on the screen, you do have a larger variety of topics and headlines.  Rather than losing readers, then, you may actually gain more because you have the ability to appeal to a larger number of readers.  Plus, they have more content to look at and it’s easy to find: right on your home page.  No digging through archives necessary!

2. A Blog is More than Page Rank

And even if you are using a paid review, if you do have a considerable page rank, readers will read the ad anyways, and the advertiser will still get value from that.  It’s not all about the numbers – it’s also about what those numbers represent, which is readers viewing the page.

3. Avoid Clutter on Home Page

And of course, if you do get rather wordy (like this entry), then you can hide some of it behind the more tag so that one entry does not dominate or monopolize the page.

4. Know What Appeals to Your Readers

Even more convincingly – and what I think really adds to the value of the more tag – is that using the more tag can help you better understand what your bloggers are reading.  That’s right.  You can track which articles they click on and see what has a better click rate.

Read blogworld’s article for more information about reasons to use the more tag.