Testing the 'After the Jump' Function on Blogger

This is a test post. I've noticed that some of my blogger friends write their entire post on one 'page' while others write an intro and add a 'read more' link. Considering which way I should organize my blogs, I posed the question to the blogging community. 



As always, I got immediate and helpful responses from other bloggers. Not only did I get informed answers, I also got links to tutorials on how to make it happen. This post is my first test of these instructions: Creating 'After the Jump' Summaries

And if you're still following along, here are a few of the responses I received from seasoned bloggers: 

I was taught that using read more is good for SEO - it encourages visitors to go deeper into your site. How much it helps, I don't really know...

It prevents the home page from being too cluttered, and allows the reader to see snippets of more posts than just the latest one.

I always assumed it was to be able to have a bunch of teasers on the first page...?  

There are a few reasons for read more. If you post several items each day, your visitors can visit the page and see the list of which ones are up for that day and read what they want. Next some of my post would be too long so I cut it off to direct people to go read more. Lastly I use it for linking to other content like my online articles or other people's articles.

It's so the blog 'viewee' doesn't have to look at a wall of text as they read. I tend to write in huge chunks so I have to try to remember when I blog to break my thoughts down into smaller paragraphs, but I think for some, they like more to fit on one 'page' of their blog; makes their blog more "user and reader friendly."

Some people think it looks cleaner than just a big 'ol wall of text. The reader can skim the 'teaser' portion and then move on to more if they decide to keep reading. Also, there can be many more posts on the main page.  

I'd like to hear your opinion.

• As a blogger, do you write your entire post on one page or use the 'read more' option?
• As a reader, do you think the 'read more' option is a good thing or a bad thing? Do you always click to keep reading or do you jump off?