Do you have email subscribers to your blog? If so, every time you publish a new blog post, they get a ‘New Post’ email notification.

Here’s a screenshot of an email notification I got from WordPress when blogger Sally Cronin recently published a new blog post.

Notice how only the first part of the post is visible to me. 

To read the whole post, I have to click on its title or the ‘read more of this post‘ link (highlighted in the above image). This means I have to visit Sally’s blog to read the post, thus improving the viewing statistics on her blog.

Are there any disadvantages in displaying whole blog posts in email notifications?

Yes. WordPress has a setting available that allow users to either show the whole post or a brief summary of the post in emails. Therefore, unless the setting is changed, readers do not have to visit a blog to read a post.

If you’re an author or sell goods or services on your blog, this means your email subscribers won’t see them unless they visit your blog to leave a comment. This also means they may not be tempted to discover anything else on your blog or see any ‘Pages’ you have (such as your ‘About Me‘ page).

I get lots of email notifications from bloggers where I can read the whole post in the email, so I don’t have to visit their blog. Videos and YouTube videos don’t display in the email, thus making it look uninviting to read. Photos and other images in the email version of a blog post can also be distorted and affect the formatting of text. The result can look messy.  

Not visiting the actual post also discourages some readers from leaving comments. 

How Do I Change The Email Display Setting On WordPress?

To change the setting so your whole post does not show in the email, follow the guide below.

• On the dashboard of your blog, click on ‘Settings‘ then on ‘Reading.’ 

• On the ‘Reader Settings‘ page that opens, look for ‘For each post in a feed, include‘ and change the setting from ‘Full Text’ to ‘Excerpt’. 

Press the ‘Save Changes‘ button at the bottom of the page.

Your setting is now saved, and your new blog post email notifications will only display a brief summary of every new post you publish. This means readers have to visit your blog to read posts. 

If you don’t write your own excerpts, WordPress will use the first 55 words of your blog post as the excerpt.

Let’s Wrap It Up

• By default, WordPress automatically shows the entire contents of new blog posts in email notifications.
• Unless the ‘For each post in a feed, include’ setting is changed, email subscribers to your blog don’t need to visit your blog to read your posts.
• Not visiting your blog may discourage readers from leaving or reading comments.
• If you sell books, services or any goods on your blog, readers won’t see them if they can read blog posts on email notifications.
• Changing the ‘For each post in a feed, include’ setting to ‘Excerpt’, will mean your email notifications will only display a snippet of your new blog posts.
• Changing the setting is easy to do. Follow the guide in this blog post.

Any questions about changing the ’email summary’ setting? Leave them in the comments section.

This is an updated version of a previous post I originally published in 2016. It has been updated to take into account changes on WordPress.

Copyright © 2021 hughsviewsandnews.com – All rights reserved.