There is much to be said about a simple and clean looking website. Readers do not want to come to your blog and be bombarded with tons of information they may or may not be interested in. That is why inserting a More Tag into all of your posts is a great solution.
Adding a More Tag limits the amount of text seen on each blog post on the main page. It allows your visitors to catch a small glimpse of what your post is about without seeing the entire thing laid out on the page. This technique also allows you to fit more content onto the screen at once because the More Tag compresses all of your content making it look more organized and easy to digest.
How to Insert a More Tag
The process for inserting a More Tag is very simple. After writing up your new post (or after editing an existing one) place the cursor where you would like the Read More Tag to break the text. Next, click on the Insert dropdown on your toolbar. Select the option stating Insert Read More tag.
After selecting this option you will notice a dashed line with the word “More” will appear where you originally placed your cursor. This separates the text between what will be seen by the reader on the main page versus what will be seen after clicking “Read More”.
If you are using the text editor you can manually add the More Tag by entering the More Tag like this where you would like the text to break:
<!–more–>
Customize Your More Tag
Sometimes you might want the More Tag to say something exciting like “Check This Out” or “Click Here for More”.
You can easily customize what your default WordPress More Tag says by changing a tiny bit of code in your text editor. Don’t worry! I am not experienced at coding by any means and I figured it out. If I can do it, so can you.
Start by clicking on the Text tab located right next to the Visual tab at the top of your toolbar on the right hand side while in the Edit Post view.
This will turn all of your visual text into craziness (that’s the only way I know how to explain it!).
Now all you have to do is change <!–more–> to the custom text you would like the tag to say. For example, if you wanted the tag to say “Check This Out”, type in Check This Out after the word more in the code:
<!–more Check This Out–>
Then push publish and voila! Now you have a customized Read More Tag.
Conclusion
It is always fun to learn quick tips and tricks that more experienced people use every day. Utilizing the Read More Tag is one of those little gems that can make your website look more professional and easy to read.
I would love to hear all about your custom More Tags. The more exciting the better! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
The post How to Add a Read More Tag to Your WordPress Blog appeared first on Lindsay Liedke.