Read More button

[Rapturecamps]

Hey everyone

We have a read more button always at the end of the 4th paragraph. We used it so we always have the Photos section within the area of view...

http://www.surfcampinportugal.com/

Does this harm our SEO?

Thanks in advance...

[Rapturecamps]

Hey Davis

Thanks a million time for you long report, we have already got rid of the Read more button. I am working on a Call to action button at the moment, its quite tricky with a clean design like that About the lack of content on the pages, do you recommend we put longer text`s or is it goo enough if we do good weekly blog posts?

best regards and thanks in advance...

[GeorgeDavis]

Hi Joshua,

In my opinion I do not believe the read more button is a good idea, but not because of an SEO issue.  I don't think it's hurting you because GoogleBot can tell the difference between a div hidden for spam and a div hidden for valid reasons.  See this quote :

The goal of our guidelines against hidden text and cloaking are to ensure that a user gets the same information as the Googlebot. However, our definition of webspam is dependent on the webmaster's intent. For example, common sense tells us that not all hidden text means webspam--e.g. hidden DIV tags for drop-down menus are probably not webspam, whereas hidden DIVs stuffed full of unrelated keywords are more likely to indicate webspam.

Source

That being said, I do not think the "Read More" button is a good idea in your particular case for the following reasons :

1. Your pages are a bit lacking in content.  You should be trying to beefing them up a bit, you are on the right track but could definitely use some improvement.  In most cases it seems like the "Read More" button is only hiding one or two sentences.
2. If you want the photo section to always be in view I would recommend putting it in the sidebar or somehow off to the side.  I am running on a MacBook Pro at 1680x1050 and the "Read More" button is not even on my screen, much less the photos section.
3. I can't find any discernable call-to-action on the pages, as a user i'm sort of unsure of the purpose of the site is aside from information.  If this is what you intended then more power to you, but it's always good to give the users some kind of action to follow, whether that be contacting you for a brochure, or booking a reservation.  Ann Smarty has a great article on how to do this.

If I were in your position I would nix the read more button, go with a 2 column layout and put the call to action in a very obvious spot in a color that stands out.  Maybe a big button with text that says "Learn to surf for only $35" or something.

I hope this helped and sorry if my advice was not what you are expecting!