The Optional Excerpt [WordPress]: resource of the week
06. Sep, 2008 
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In my unending pursuit of blog perfection, I stumbled across this juicy little piece of information: your WordPress archives don’t have to be ugly, meaningless blocks of text. Thanks to Pearsonified, your archives can look as pretty as mine (aka formatted and full of life).
Wicked WordPress Archives in One Easy Step!
From Pearsonified:
So, how do we change our boring archives into beautiful, unique pages with images that just beg to be scanned? The answer lies with…
…the WordPress optional excerpt feature. How beautifully simple. All you have to do is insert your own formatted teaser information and instead of the first 55 words of your post’s content (with no pretty layout), you’ll get something that’s actually presentable. For 10 things I have gone back through the posts (all six of them) and just copied and pasted my content up to the more tag. Now my archives are fancied up (as my 5-year old would say).
Read all about this feature:
Wicked WordPress Archives in One Easy Step!
When you’re finished, you’ll be itching to optional excerpt your posts, old and new.
Using the excerpt not only acts as a teaser, it helps to increase your traffic. Since the visitor has to click on the excerpt to read the full article, you get an extra hit.