Wordpress Hack #5: 10 Ways to Improve Navigation
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10. Sidebar Navigation Options in Wordpress
The sidebar is where a lot of users look first when looking for what they want, or additional content of yours they may be interested in. Ordinariy what we see in the sidebar are blog network widgets (mybloglog, blogcatalog, bumpzee, entrecard), some type or archived lists (monthly archive links or a calendar), your recents posts, and in some themes recent comments. I’ve added my most read posts in my sidebar as I mentioned previously. There are a hundred ways to tweak that sidebar with code, but since you’re probably already overwhelmed by the first 9 ways to hack your Wordpress navigation I’m going to take it easy on your in the 10th way. If you really want code to hack your side bar, it’s already published on the Wordpress Codex page for “Customizing Your Sidebar” anyway - no sense in duplicating that.
Widgets. That’s right - all the options I’ve going to give you for pimping out your sidebar nav will be with widgets. Just install like a plugin, enable, and then go to “Presentation -> Widgets” to drag and drop them into your sidebar. Don’t forget to hit the “update” button!
First - I would recommend viewing the Wordpress Widget Plugin Page to get a list of everything available. Then, take a look at the ones I recommend:
Drop down Archives Widget: Makes your achives a drop down, saving precious sidebar space. ‘nuf said…oh, and there’s the Dropdown blogroll links widget too.
You could use the List Author’s Widget.
or the Parent Pages Widget.
Show your del.icio.us bookmarks using the del.icio.us cached++ widget.
The best widget I think (which isn’t exactly navigation but greatly helps you) is the Wordpress Plugin iFrame Widgets. What does it do? Well, it takes those blog network widgets and puts them in an iframe. Why is that helpful? When your blog page loads and it hangs because it has to wait for those blog network widgets to load to continue loading your page. This Wordpress widget puts those widgets in an iFrame and your page will load normally (first) and those blog network widgets will appear when and if the code comes back from their network servers. If for some reason they don’t load, they won’t take up any space in your sidebar!
I hope you have learned all you need to know about hacking Wordpress navigation today - as always please comment if you have something to add or a question!
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
This post has multiple pages...
- 10 Ways to Improve Navigation
- Page 2 - Adding Breadcrumbs to Wordpress Navigation
- Page 3 - How to Hack Ugly Wordpress Next and Previous Links
- Page 4 - Wordpress Next and Previous Links for Single Pages
- Page 5 - Wordpress More Links and Excerpts
- Page 6 - How to Achieve Multi-Paged Post Navigation in Wordpress
- Page 7 - How to Add Related Posts After Content in Wordpress
- Page 8 - How to Display the Most Viewed Posts in Wordpress
- Page 9 - How to Show Most Popular Posts in Wordpress
- Page 10 - How to Assign and Show Category Images in Wordpress
- Page 11 - Sidebar Navigation Options in Wordpress
- View All
Tags: navigation, plugin, wordpress-hacks
April 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Thank you very much ! I’m glad you appreciate the Category Icons plugin.
Submarines last blog post..Latest version installed but WordPress says it can be updated
April 19th, 2008 at 4:20 am
You !!Rock I Am in search of these Post ..
Thannks for putting such a nice hack Here
Thanks
Vevin.Com
Vevins last blog post..View Locked Albums and Increase Yours Fans
April 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Very nice demonstration of breaking a post up into multiple pages.
This is something I love about wordpress also.
I post ebooks (old non-copyright books) and breaking them up into chapters, gives a lot of pages. Adding a few keyword links back to your home page or a page you want to push in the ranks is a great trick. You provide some useful content that is unique and add some link love back to your other pages.
I usually just make a “table of contents” and paste it in the beginning of the first page or on each page. I’ve noticed google likes this. Google wouldn’t really crawl the next pages that much until I started adding this. The plugin you suggest makes it quicker and adds more functions. I’ve downloaded it and will have to play![=)]](http://www.jtpratt.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/4.gif)
I am noticing that your title tag for each of the 11 pages for this post are all the same, does the plugin allow you to change that for each page? I know we can change the heading titles, but didn’t see anything about the meta tag. . . that would be another big bonus.
thx,
Charles
PS. . .
I’ve moded one of my sites, thus the earlier comments here go to a non-site now….
If you like…if easy, you can remove my old email and name (Charles linked to whateveryoneneedstoknow). Can’t keep up with all the sites.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I did you one short with my last comment. I found a hack I was searching for, but it seems there is quite a little bit more to be found here… so I had to say: awesome lists! I just subscribed to I’ll back for more![=[]](http://www.jtpratt.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/11.gif)
Remkuss last blog post..Premium WordPress Theme: Morning After
April 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
You didn’t mention the sitemap plugin by Dagon Design. I think it makes it really easy to find all your posts sorted out by category.
I wrote about it and you can see it in action on my blog.
http://www.marketing-tools-review.com/blog/2007/06/favorite-wordpress-plugin-of-the-day-3-sitemap-generator/
April 19th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Thanks for the comment, Hock. I didn’t mention that plugin because I don’t think it’s very good, and also because it doesn’t belong on this hack about navigation. That’s more of an archive page, which was Wordpress Hack #2.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:59 am
[...] : JTPRATT’s Blogging Mistakes ( here & here ), Performancing Helping Bloggers [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am
Hock, thanks for the idea.
I checked out dagon design’s sitemap generator after seeing your comment here.
It works well for a noob like me.
I guess JT has two of us that like it![=[]](http://www.jtpratt.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/11.gif)
I just posted on JT’s other article about 404 pages. I’m using the sitemap generator on that page also. It gives everything for the lost visitor to find their way again.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Charles
Acupunctures last blog post..What are True Acupuncture points?
May 1st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Just a heads up Breadcrumb Navigation XT, the page you linked to, is obsolete as of January, 2008. Breadcrumb NavXT replaced it. My server sometimes crashes
but you shouldn’t be seeing HTTP 500 messages. It’s probably safest to link to the wordpress.org plugin directory page for it, located at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/ since that’s where I’m actually hosting it now.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
[...] April 19, 2008 by Johnny I was just checking out JT Pratt’s page on using the nextpage tag in WordPress. You can checkout the his post at making more money blogging wordpress hacks using nextpage. [...]
August 17th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Story of my life…
I just spent 45 minutes figuring out how to build breadcrumbs and hardcoding them into my template after using them here for the last few days. And NOW I finally get to the article with the plugin! ARGH!! I guess I shoulda done a search before delving in.
On the other hand, I’m finally starting to understand how PHP works… a little.
Aahzs last blog post..News From Netflix!
August 31st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Cheers! I’ve been looking for a “Most Viewed” type widget plugin for WP for some time now!
Davids last blog post..The Essential Student Cooking Guide (Part 3)
September 13th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Thanks for the tips. I like the iframes widget myself - it does eliminate some of those slow loading annoyances.
Ians last blog post..Still here
October 13th, 2008 at 1:02 am
[...] MORE each and every time they visit your blog. This article was a synopsis of my in depth article Wordpress Hack #5: 10 Ways to Improve Navigation. Happy [...]
October 14th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Thank you Thank you Thank you
Just what I was looking for.
I am using most of these plugins with success now.. amazing
Sarbjit Singhs last blog post..FMS MBA Admission 2009, Delhi University
October 29th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Thanks very much - I’ve been trying to find single post pagenavi for ages!
Alex Ds last blog post..Rock Band 2 Coming to the UK November