What Length Should A Post Excerpt Be?
It is one thing to choose excerpts over full posts on the homepage. You can even choose how you want to generate these excerpts easily enough. Yet with that done, you still have another decision to make every time you write a post; what length should a post excerpt be?
Getting the Job Done
In short, a post excerpt should be as long as it needs to be to get the job done. The job of an excerpt is to give your readers a teaser, a sample of what is to come. It is important to realize that your excerpt is not your article. If you wanted the reader to hear all that you have to say on the home page, you would be using full posts, not excerpts.
A good excerpt is short enough to be consumed quickly, but long enough to give some substance and hint at what is to come. After reading the excerpt, the reader should know exactly what they will find if they click through to the rest of the article.
Make Breaks At Logical Points
By default, WordPress will cut an excerpt exactly 55 words from the start of a post. The problem with this is not the length it cuts, but that it is mechanical. The location at which the post is broken does not make sense.
When splitting an excerpt from the start of a post, the post should be split somewhere natural, i.e. At the end of a paragraph of bullet point.
Furthermore, if you include a subheading in your excerpt, you should also include at least the first paragraph after the heading. If you do not, the homepage will show a heading with no body, causing your readers unnecessary confusion. A subheading is always used between areas of content, not at the end of one.
More Text Than Images
Many blogs use post images to increase the likelihood of post being read. Naturally, these images will appear in the excerpts.
Depending on the size of the image, it may dominate a short excerpt if placed inline with the text. The image should appear as an accessory to the post. If your excerpt is short, it may cause the reader to see it as filler. Using a longer excerpt allows it to be seen that your content far outweighs your images.
As a rule of thumb, I like to have at least one paragraph of text completely below the image. Find what works for your own blog, and go with it.
Cut Consistently
As with any style you adopt on your blog, whilst the style may be important, the consistency of its use can be of even greater importance. If you tend to have excerpts that are 4 paragraphs long, then stick to this rule as often as possible.
Of course, special cases may arise where the excerpt needs to be shorter or longer (Usually due to the logic mentioned in the second point here), at which time it is perfectly acceptable to bend the rules.
What lengths are your excerpts? Do they get the job done for you?
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About the Author - Michael Martin is the founder of Pro Blog Design. He works as a freelance web designer, loves WordPress, and has an unhealthy addiction to smilies. Written on 6th September 2007.
Other posts tagged with Post Excerpts, Post Images, Usability.
6th September, 1:47 pm GMT
Good points, Michael. I use the 'More' tag for my excerpts so I have the luxury of placing them where I want. Heh, I make it sound special, but I guess most Wordpress bloggers use this too!
I tend to write with the excerpt in mind. I write an introduction of two or three paragraphs, then generally use a quick teaser for what the article will offer as a cue for adding in the 'More' link. Usually something along the lines of: "In this post, I'll discuss what causes a reader to want to bookmark content," etc.
6th September, 2:25 pm GMT
@Skellie and Michael: Use Homepage Excerpts plugin by dailyblogtips....simple
6th September, 3:44 pm GMT
Skellie - I used to use that, but converted my site to excerpts at one point, and now I'm stuck with excerpts because I would have to go through every article adding tags. Woops. xD
The introductions I write here usually sum up the rest of the post to a certain extent (They don't always give the conclusion though). I've never written with the excerpt in mind tbh (Though I probably should!), but there is usually a logical enough spot for me to make the split.
TechZilo - But why? It's just a plugin that varies the excerpt length depending on the page you're on. It's completely mechanical (My 2nd point), and not even Daily Blog Tips itself is using it! xD
It was a good idea, and I've no doubt that it will help some people who feature full posts on their homepage (Although it has always been possible to show the latest post in full, and the rest as excerpts anyway.
).
6th September, 4:09 pm GMT
I try to use the "more" tag as well in places that make sense to me. I'm not a big fan of the automatic cutoff that some use. Unless the post is shorter in length, the "more" tag is the best I've found.
6th September, 4:59 pm GMT
John - I agree that the more tag is good. It is good because you can't just be lazy with it. You have to manually choose where to place it, so it forces people to put a little more thought into their choice.
6th September, 6:21 pm GMT
There are definetly some points there that I will use on my own blog, thanks!
6th September, 7:55 pm GMT
Currently I don't use any excerpts yet but for soon once I got the new design covered I have a bunch of longer articles ready already and also decided to give my posts a bit more attention in general so.
The exact length I'll take for excerpts will be manual, but probably like 2~4 paragraphs, sort of depending on how much I would have available to write in the intro.
6th September, 8:08 pm GMT
Padraig - No problem.
Slevi - A new design? Looking forward to seeing that, and the length you've chosen sounds good.
6th September, 8:25 pm GMT
I'd also be in the 2-4 paragraphs boat. On my 'blog rehash' I plan to create something that will count the number of paragraphs and use this to decide how much text to show.
A while back i tried creating my own blog-like thing. I just can't use packages like WP. It certainly brings to your attention the number of things you need to do to get a blog right - many of my misaktes have been listed here. I think one of my biggest mistakes was to not even give a preview of the posts. I just put them all in a table with a post.
The benefit of creatingyour own is that you are in control. You don't have to worry about if someone else has made a plugin for this or that, youcan just do it.
6th September, 8:50 pm GMT
This code is working well:
retrieving the RSS with 30 words and no image,
but with the custom field and another code (excerpts) getting the post image thumb is also possible.
6th September, 8:50 pm GMT
David - lol, "rehash"? Sound elegant.
But that does sound like a much better way of automatically generating excerpts. I like it! Creating your own system would be good because you would know exactly what can be done, and exactly how to add whatever functionality you're after.
The downside is of course the development time. I like Wordpress, and I love the plugins for it. There are plugins for things that I would never even have thought of! It's that community that keeps me a WP user.
6th September, 8:51 pm GMT
Argh, WP ate the code...
the_content_rss('more_link_text', FALSE, 'more_file', 30
6th September, 9:12 pm GMT
Thanks for sharing milo. That code would work well when your design requires the excerpt fit into a very exact space, like on your blog's homepage.
6th September, 9:16 pm GMT
excerpts. Thanks to you this is something I have begun using... mostly on notchinamade.net The only time i do an excert where the image is the excerpt is for the posts on toy recalls lately. That way people have the visual to see if it is something they have or not and if they think they might they can click to read on. The rest is usually a block quote from the recall from the government and there really isn't a way to break it up. So i figure in that one instance the picture being the excerpt is okay
I'm so glad I have been able to keep my feeder in full feed though b/c i can't stand having to click to a site to read if I'm not going to comment.
6th September, 10:43 pm GMT
Mommy Zabs - In the example you described on notchinamade.net, I agree that there is no need for a text excerpt, provided you write a good, descriptive title (Which you did.
).
7th September, 1:12 am GMT
I don't like excerpts. I only read as much as is listed on the front page and then I either comment or move on. I can't stand having to click something to read the rest, then go back to the main page to read more.
7th September, 1:30 am GMT
Michael,
This is a very useful article for me as I have kind of been overlooking this. I really like the point you make about leaving a paragraph below a picture. That definitely helps with the visual layout of the blog front page.
Also, good use of internal links in this post. It's nice to have several resources on the subject all just one click away.
7th September, 3:28 am GMT
I usually allow at least two or three paragraphs before using the "More" tag found on the WP editor. I only use it when my post has at least 5 paragraphs of content.
8th September, 6:41 am GMT
My blog is a photoblog. So I copy & paste the thumbnail of the picture and a small amount of text from the post into the excerpt area. I currently don't use it anywhere on my site yet. If I can build some traffic, I may change my monthly archive page and categories page to use it. My home page is all full posts.
8th September, 1:36 pm GMT
Amy - Fair enough, but to comment, you have to click through anyway?
Steven - lol, thanks. It's nice that the archives are finally growing to a point where I actually can link internally!
pablopabla - Nice system.
Dave - Sounds like you're prepared at least. That means you will always have the option to change between the 2 very easily.
9th September, 12:34 pm GMT
I used to be like Amy, but I think that's because I was exposed to poor excerpting. I read one blog in particular that was consistent, as you said, but it was a consistent pain in the neck. They had an image and a tiny amount of text before the "click for more" so to read anything you had to click all over the place and the homepage felt confused.
Lately however I've seen longer excerpts that do pull me in and Im happy to click to read more.
Since you've posted about excerpts I've started using the more tag. I don't do a lot of the things you've said here though. It terms of consistency, I generally put it at the end of 3 paragraphs, but those paragraphs might be fairly different lengths. I try to put it somewhere that makes sense, where people might want to continue reading.
Actually I think my main reason for using it is I don't want to show really long posts on the front page...
9th September, 1:55 pm GMT
Kristarella - Putting it somewhere that makes sense is the most important tip of all I'd say. If that's what you're doing, you're doing well.
Even on Pro Blog Design, the excerpt length does tend to vary a fair bit. I would never sacrifice good writing for the sake of getting a consistent length either. The tips I've listed here are the things I consider each time I choose my excerpt, but I don't necessarily obey all of them with every post.