Blogging Tips: Use of More Tag & Excerpts
Simple blogging tips for using the More Tag and custom Post Excerpts on your WordPress blog
If you use a traditional blogging format, several posts show up on the main page of your blog. You can set the number of posts that display under Settings > Reading.
This setting will not only control the number of posts that show on the main page, but also on the category and other archive pages. The excerpts that display on those pages are not controlled by the More Tag. They show the excerpt you create for each post (or automatically create an excerpt for you by default).
While WordPress will create an excerpt for each post automatically, you should create your own excerpt for each post. This gives you the opportunity to write a custom snippet that compels visitors to click through and read the entire post.
You do this by typing in your preferred excerpt for a blog post just below the composition window, in a box labeled “Excerpt”:
Tip: use your keyword phrase in your excerpt
The excerpt is different than using the More Tag, and you can learn more about it’s uses here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Excerpt
In addition to creating custom snippets for your category and archives pages, the Excerpt is used in Aweber’s Blog Broadcast to give your email subscribers a snippet of what each blog post is about. Using a custom excerpt can dramatically increase your click-through rate from those email notifications.
How Many Posts Should You Display?
I currently have ClickNewz set to display the six most recent blog posts, but you should set yours according to what works best with your WordPress theme. Ideally you’ll coordinate it with the length of your sidebar. This allows you to balance the content on your main page and eliminate too much “white space” either in the content area or the sidebar area.
(Since my excerpts have been a bit longer than usual lately, you’ll notice more white space below the content in the right sidebar. Not ideal.)
If you are displaying full posts instead of excerpts on the main page of your blog, that page could get quite long if you have it set to display more than one. It’s best to use ~5 post excerpts so that you can give your visitors a quick view and a sampling of your most recent content.
Using the More Tag
# more – WordPress tag that breaks a post into “teaser” and content sections. Type a few paragraphs, insert this tag, then compose the rest of your post. On your blog’s home page you’ll see only those first paragraphs with a hyperlink ((more…)), which when followed displays the rest of the post’s content. source: writing blog posts
The More Tag is used to control the way your posts display on the main page of your blog. You’ll find this tag in the menu bar at the top of your composition window. You can also type in the More Tag using this code:
(!–more–)
(you’ll need to replace the ( and ) with < and > in the code above. So it’s a bracket, explanation point, two hyphens, the word “more”, two hyphens, and an ending bracket.)
There are two things consider when using the More Tag: how much content you want to display, and creating a lead-in to compel visitors to click through to read the rest of your blog post.
Since the More Tag is used only on the main page of your blog, this is a great way to offer new visitors a teaser of current posts and get them engaged enough to click through and read a specific blog post.
When I blog, I know that I am going to use the More Tag, and so I write my posts to lead into that More Tag. Here’s a recent example of a blog post as it showed on the main page here at ClickNewz:
The use of images before the More Tag will draw your readers eyes to the post, and a compelling statement or lead-in to your topic just before the More Tag will encourage them to click through and read the rest of the post.
Your blog post & page display formatting is important. Make good use of both Excerpts and the More Tag, and use them strategically to lead your visitors deeper into the content on your blog.
Best,
p.s. Want more great blogging tips? See http://www.probloggerworkbook.com
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It took me awhile to figure this one out! I always wondered why everybody with my theme was using the more tag and I could never find it. I love using it now as it makes the homepage look a lot nicer.
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Great post! Never quite got that more tag before. Very useful. Thanks
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Thanks for this tip Lynn, I read the link on Excerpts and never realized that’s what showed up in search engines for post descriptions, definitely a great place to add keywords too. This will also make setting up blog broadcast a lot easier. I better stop ignoring this feature lol
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I must admit that I only really use the more tag if my posts are really long (naughty I know
)!
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Excellent (as always) Lynn. I’ll be setting up the more tag and excerpt on my new blog.
Thanks for providing top=notch resources!
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Honestly, I never knew excerpt on post is possible. Ideally, it’s the best way to make the audience go to your blog. If you only know how to do the excerpt in a much appealing way.
You know, I’ve never created my own excerpts. I think I have just sort of glazed over that box. I use the All In One SEO plugin and go straight down to filling out that information. I’ll have to program myself to just go ahead and write an excerpt too. Thanks for the tip!
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Great Article. Deploying the “more” tag also helps with reducing the bounce rate as people visit more than one page to read the full article.
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Thank you Lynn for clarifying all of this. When I wrote you about it, I had no idea, and even though I had figured some of it out, this helped out even more!
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Thanks Lynn I always wondered how everyone did the more tag and now I know and now I’ve implemented.
Cheers
Sue
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[...] the Exerpt tag in WordPress can be more powerful than you think… I recently read a post about using the Exerpt part of the wordpress platform on Lynn Terry’s blog, a Personal fan of mine and co-author of [...]
I’m going to try the “more tag” on a blog of mine, and see if I can format it right. I agree this will increase pageviews, and i’m also going to limit the number of posts on the homepage.
Thanxs for the reminder, Lynn! I had been meaning to do this.
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Hi Lynn, I use the plugin homepage excerpts. This allows me to have one full post on my homepage and then excerpts of the rest of the posts. It also helps me not have to remember the whole “more” thing. I didn’t realize about the excerpt though. I’m going to have to look at that a little closer.
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It is simple: don’t use tags in the first place or use “noindex” for the tag pages. Otherwise, is just more duplicate content on your website!
Thank you, I use all in one seo thought that would be enough but I am going to do what you say now because you make a point there!
I don’t use the more tag, instead I just put one post per page. I believe the more tag is good if you are niche blogging, so that your readers can see more blog posts about that niche.
Great post. I don’t usually focus much on tags before but reading this post I finally figured out the importance of these. Thank you!
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Excerpt could be very useful to every post. It can give the readers an overview of the discussion for the entire post. More tag is also useful in the appearance of all posts. It can make your site looks more organized than before.
Tags and Excerpt were always to complex me me. At least, thats what I was thinking. Your post makes it a lot easier to understand. I look forward to read more posts
Just finished implementing the more tag on my blog. Quite easily done thanks to this great guide. Thanks for this!