What is an Excerpt in WordPress?
An excerpt in WordPress is a summary or description of your content that you can display on archive pages such as categories, tags, and the homepage.
It’s useful to help visitors see what’s inside the post before they click through. You can manually add an excerpt to any page or post in WordPress by using the Excerpt field that appears in the post editor.
If you don’t add an excerpt, WordPress will automatically take a few sentences from the beginning of your page or post to display as an excerpt instead.
You can also use plugins such as Advanced Excerpt and Auto Excerpt Everywhere to customize excerpts for different parts of your website.
Additionally, some themes have built-in options for displaying excerpts in different places.
No matter what method you use, remember that the excerpt is a great way to engage readers and encourage them to click through to read more of your content. Therefore, ensure your excerpt is accurate, relevant, and as compelling as possible.
Ways to Use Excerpts in WordPress
The excerpt feature can be used in a variety of ways.
Here are some examples:
- Display excerpts on your homepage or blogroll page to provide a preview of each post.
- Use excerpts as summaries for specific categories, tags, or other archives pages.
- Create custom excerpts to give readers an idea of what the post is about before they click through.
- Include excerpts in emails and other communications to encourage readers to visit the post.
- Display a brief description at the top of each blog post, so readers know what to expect.
Using excerpts can help you get more eyes on your content, boost engagement, and attract readers from all over the web. With just a few steps, you can create an excerpt that will give visitors a preview of what’s inside your content.
How to Customize, Delete or Add Excerpts to WordPress Posts
You can customize, delete, or add excerpts to WordPress posts in several different ways.
- If you want to create a custom excerpt for a post, go to the post editor and scroll down to the Excerpt field. Here, you can type a short description of your content that will be used as an excerpt on archive pages.
- If you don’t want to display an excerpt on any particular page or post, leave the Excerpt field blank, and no excerpt will be displayed.
- Finally, if you want to delete an existing excerpt from a post or page, simply delete the text from the Excerpt field and click “Update.” The default excerpt will then be used instead.