Tutorial On How To Use Blogger's New "Read More" Function

A Guest Post by Dawn Farias

FIT MORE POSTS ON A PAGE!

INCREASE YOUR PAGE VIEWS!

LET YOUR FIRST PARAGRAPH STAND OUT!

INCREASE THE RATE OF SHARING ON YOUR POSTS!

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What do you think of that "Read more" link you just clicked?  Snazzy, eh?  This tutorial will show you how you can do that trick easily with Blogger's new editor.  According to this article on displaying partial posts at Blogussion, it may just help you achieve those lofty goals above.  Let's get started.

Switching over to Blogger's new editor

The editor is where you compose and edit your posts.  The "Read more" function is easily accessible in the new editor, but you may not have switched over yet.  Let's do that now.

After logging into your Blogger account, you will be taken to your dashboard.  Click on "Settings".

Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the next screen.  This will be the screen for the "basic" tab.  Under "global settings" you have the option to "select post editor".  You want to click "updated editor" and then "save settings".  This change will apply to any other blogs you have.

Write your post

Scroll back up to the top and click on the "posting" tab to go to a new post.  Type your post and keep in mind that your first paragraph will be the only thing your readers see before deciding whether to click "Read more" or not.  Have fun, be creative, and try to capture their interest.

Insert the jump break

The jump break is the spot where you want to break your post up.  In this post that you are reading now, I wanted to insert the jump break after the exclamations in the intro.  Here is how I did that:  I scrolled to the top of the article and placed my cursor in the empty space between the intro and the next paragraph.

 

Next, I inserted the jump break by clicking on the torn paper icon in the upper right.  This will insert a gray line showing you where your post will be broken up.

That's it! Publish, view, and enjoy.

Bonus Mini Tutorial:  Customize the words "Read more"

After viewing your post click Customize > Edit button on the bottom right corner of the Blog Posts widget.  (If not viewing your post, click Layout > Page Elements > Edit button on the bottom right corner of the Blog Posts widget.)

Betcha never noticed that button there before, huh?  Lots of cool stuff in that pop-up window.  For our purposes right now, though, look at the top.  Just click inside that box and the words "Read more >>" will disappear and you can enter whatever you like.  Take a moment, also, to look at the rest of the white boxes in this image.  You can edit the text in any of those and further personalize your blog and make it All You.

Troubleshooting:  When viewing the "Read more" function at work you must View Blog and not View Post.  Viewing post will show you the entire length of your article.

If you're using a heavily customized template then you may need to insert some code in order for this function to work properly.  See this post at Blogger Buster for help on adding the read more function to customized templates.   For example, in this tutorial I've manually inserted the Read more link at the top which is why it didn't disappear when you clicked through to read the entire thing.  But I'm a mere humble guest blogger and don't have access (nor permission!) to go rummaging around Amanda's code to fix things.

UPDATE:  Please see this post at Blogger Stop for solutions to three common errors you might get with the "Read more" function.  The last two errors I've encountered while doing this tutorial!

P.S.  In honor of this tutorial I inserted jump breaks all over the posts that appear on the front page of my personal blog.  It was a lot of fun and I now feel very professional.

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Dawn Farias has a personal blog at I Hate Socks where she bemoans her sock laundering duties and asks important questions about being Catholic, choosing homeschooling (over and over again with the dawn of each new day), and how to live a more holy life.  If that stuff doesn't interest you then maybe you'd like to check out her brand new blog decorating shop, Almost Ready Blogs.  She's dying for feedback over there and promises not to wax theological.  ;)