What is the best way to publish a post in Wordpress?

[Jen]

Thank you very much for your comments, but now I am even more confused than before, because I posted the same question in another forum, and someone replied it's a good thing to use the "more" feature and not to "clutter" the home page!

You're right - there is no consensus. That's because there is no single "right" way to set up your blog. But maybe I can help give a context for the conflicting answers you're getting in different places. Basically, it depends a lot on your goals as a blogger. Because this is the AB Forum, obviously the community tends to make assumptions about what those goals are...

Here, the focus is on the readers and on building a long-term faithful readership. Other forums may be more focussed on getting click-through traffic from SERPs - in the "make-money-online" model, subscribers and whether someone actually reads your writing would be of much less importance. Authority bloggers do acknowledge the importance of search engines in helping people to find your site, don't get me wrong! But with a difference emphasis - we aim to attract readers, not just clicks.

And that's why full-length feeds are strongly encouraged. It used to be that truncating the post on the front page would automatically truncate the feed as well, and that's a big no-no. Fortunately, there are plugins to cure that now! Depending on post length, page design, etc., full posts on the front page may or may not be appropriate... I will occasionally use the 'more' tag when I've been terribly long-winded, I confess. But the bottom line is to make it as easy as possible for the reader to get the info they want.

Clear as mud?

If in doubt, why not ask your readers which style they would prefer? A little poll in the sidebar, maybe... and it would be fascinating to hear the results!

Jen