I’ve always been a fan of the “Read More” button for posts. It’s a nice way to display a short excerpt of your posts, with a button that visually leads readers to click on the button to finish reading the article. When they’re well designed, they actually look really nice, and help to visually break up the blog post archive pages. They can also help with research for which words and phrases help convince readers to click on the button to continue reading (if you’re actually doing that sort of testing.) I decided to stop using the “Read More” button altogether though.

Recently I realized a few things. One – I wasn’t doing the type of user testing for content efficacy regarding click through rates. I’m not trying to convert clicks through to articles. I’m not writing blog posts to convert sales, I’m literally writing blog posts as a practice. I’m trying to stick with a (an almost) daily practice. The conversion rates of click throughs on “Read More” buttons don’t interest me on my blog. It’s a practice for me, and if somebody comes along and finds value in my words later, why would I want to hide more content behind a button that requires them to load another page to continue reading?

I decided that the “Read More” button did little more than hide content for no particular reason. I appreciate the aesthetics of the button, but going forward, I don’t find a practical use for it. I don’t want to hide content from somebody who might find value in my writing practice later on.

So, I’m ditching the “Read More” button from here on out. It’s still there on posts that were carried over from my original website, but going forward I’m going to display all the blog post content on the page. Hopefully, if somebody comes along and finds value in this writing, I will have made it easier to read.

So why the rad dog with a mohawk in sunglasses on a beach in San Diego? Because he’s good with it, and so am I.