By default, WordPress displays the full post content on the Blog or Latest Posts page. This can make the page overwhelming and hard to browse. To improve readability and make your post list more user-friendly, you can display a shortened excerpt instead.
Which type of WordPress theme are you using?
Choose the type of theme you’re using, as the options for excerpts may vary slightly depending on your theme or the version of WordPress you are currently using.
Using the WordPress Post Excerpt in Block Themes
In the newer WordPress block themes, when adding a new post or custom post type, you’ll find the settings for the post in the right-hand settings sidebar under Post.
Here, you’ll see an option to set the post Excerpt, along with other post settings. Simply click “Add an excerpt…”, and a popup will appear where you can add a brief summary or preview of the post.
Once you’ve added the excerpt, WordPress will use it on archive pages or on pages where you’ve added a Query Loop block to display a list of posts or custom post types.
Simply click the “Add an excerpt…” and you will see the popup for where you can add your brief summary or preview of the post.
Once you’ve added this Excerpt, this will be used on add the archive pages or the pages where you add a query block to list out these posts or custom post types.
Using the WordPress Site Editor default Excerpt
If you’re editing your page or post templates in the newer WordPress Site Editor and adding a Query Loop block (used to display posts of your choice), WordPress will, by default, include the Excerpt block for each post in the list.
However, if no excerpt has been set for a post, WordPress will use a truncated version of the post content instead. In the right-hand block settings sidebar, you’ll find an option to set the Max number of words. This allows you to control the length of the truncated content.
If you’ve set an excerpt for some posts but not for others, WordPress will prioritize the custom excerpt you’ve added. If no excerpt is set, it will fall back to the truncated content based on the word count you specified.
We recommend always using a custom excerpt, as this gives you better control over the summary text that appears, ensuring it’s optimized for readability and SEO.
Using the post ‘Read More’ Block
The WordPress core Read More block is designed for use within the Query Loop block. It adds a link to the relevant post, allowing readers to navigate to the full post from the list.
Using the ‘More’ Block
The More block is intended for use within a single post page. It lets you specify exactly which part of the main post content should be displayed as the excerpt. This is especially useful if you want to highlight a specific section of the post.
For better control over what appears as the brief summary of your posts, we strongly recommend using the WordPress Post Excerpt field. This ensures that you can craft a concise, compelling, and SEO-optimized summary for each post, which is what the Excerpt is for, and provide a better user experience and improve your site’s search rankings.
Using the Post Excerpt:
The simple way to add a shortened intro text for each post in the Blog list is to use the Post Excerpt… If this setting is sometimes not on by default, then you can turn it on by going to create a new post under Posts -> Add New, or edit an existing post in your WordPress Dashboard.
In the top right corner you can click on the 3 dots to “Show more tools and options”, then click Options at the bottom to open the options panel and there you can select which panels/options will show when editing the post.
You can now enter your excerpt to show a shorter version of the post to try and interest the users in reading the full post.
Using the post ‘More’ block:
Another option is to simply add a more block in Gutenberg where you would like the Excerpt to end… So everything before the “More” block will be shown as the post Excerpt / intro.
This is also available in the older Classic Editor in the wysiwyg editor.