WordPress Excerpt – What It Is and How to Use It
In WordPress, an excerpt is basically a short summary of a blog post, sometimes with a link to the full content of the post. It is, for instance, what you see in blog lists under a blog post title, in search results or in blog archives. It can also show in RSS feeds instead of full post content. The purpose of the summary is to provide an insight into what the post is about, without actually displaying the entire post.
A simple list of blog post titles is rarely enough to tease the visitors into reading the full post. So, after you add WordPress blog post, don’t forget to write the excerpt as well. The combination of the summary, the featured image and, of course, the post title, gives just about enough information to spark the reader’s interest. As such, excerpts are very beneficial for a website’s click-through rate.
Many people don’t even know about the excerpt functionality in WordPress because, in later versions, some of the Screen Options, including Excerpt, don’t show by default.
Step 1
To fix this, you’ll need to head over to your WordPress Admin area. Go to the Posts > All posts.
Step 2
From there, click on the post you want to add an excerpt to.
Step 3
Next, in the top right corner, click on Screen Options.
Step 4
A whole additional slide-down menu will appear, where you’ll see a box named Excerpt.
Step 5
Click on the box to check it and scroll down the Editor until you reach a new meta box labeled Excerpt.
Step 6
Type in your excerpt here and click on Update.
There are no specific rules as to what to actually write down here. Bear in mind that an excerpt is a summary of your post, so keep it short, but informative. Mind the grammar and spelling, please!
We hope that you found this article to be helpful. If you liked it, please feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
