Wordpress Hack #5: 10 Ways to Improve Navigation
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5. How to Achieve Multi-Paged Post Navigation in Wordpress
Alright - it took a day to get this hack working, but I’m glad I figured out what the problem was so I could pass it on to you. The page for this plugin has some issues copying and pasting the appropriate code for some reason (on some pc’s). I copied the code to get this working and got a single instead of double dash, and the quotes were converted to backticks sometimes too. Just follow my queues in this hack and you’ll be fine…
This is something I wish that more people used, and I have to admit that I’m a victim of not doing it myself. I tend to write very, very long descriptive posts. If you printed some of them out they might span 3-6 printed pages or more. I’m breaking a lot of rules all at once here, in addition to losing money at the same time. First, the average person learns in “chunks”. They take in bits of information at once, and too much at once is an overload. I have structured this hack in “10 Steps” because that’s easy to understand and break down by heading. It also makes it easier for users to jump to the one thing or two that interests them if they don’t want or have the time to read all 10. Nevertheless, having all 10 on one big long post page is a but cumbersome. It would be smarter (and more professional) if I could break it down into “10 pages” wouldn’t it? But I still want this to be a post, and I’d hate to have to create 10 separate Wordpress pages to get what I want. Oh - and as a bonus if I find a way to do this, I will have 10 different chances to show ads to users (instead of just one), and 10 different post pages to index in the search engines as well. This post sure looks better now that it’s broken down hack by hack!
How do we achieve what we want? It’s of course (yet another) Wordpress Plugin called “Multi-Page Toolkit”. This is something I had wanted to do for a loooong time, and this plugin does it well. Something that I purposely neglected to tell you in the last section was that you can separate long posts over multiple pages yourself, the wordpress code to do this is simply:
<!–nextpage–>
Take care to make sure that the code I just gave you has 2 dashes before and after nextpage. When I copied it from the plugin page I only got one dash even though the plugin author (Tarkin) confirms that there were two dashes in the content of his post. Just paste that (in code view) in any post where you want a page break, and you can break up a post into as many pages as you want. The problem with the default Wordpress way of doing this is of course the navigation! This plugin fixes all that, because it gives you the abiltiy to add titles or headings to each page, displays the number of pages, and allows users to quickjump wherever they want. Is it more work? Yes. But for longer posts, and the extra money you’ll make by putting many more ads in front of users eyeballs - it’s work it. It also makes your site that much more professional and more like c|Net, hardware review sites, or some of the big boys blogs!
There are a couple different ways to use this plugin. One is to provide better navigation from your index, category, and tag pages (that use the loop for listing your posts). If you go to my homepage and find this post you’ll see that in my “meta” after the post heading it now says “(11 pages)”. If you want to add that to your post listing pages, just add this code…
<?php if(function_exists(’TA_display_pages’)) { TA_display_pages(’ <small>(’,’ pages)</small>’,â€,’total’); } ?>There are multiple options you can display like ‘page 1 of 3′ or ‘you are on page 1 now’, read the plugin page to get them.
As I said previously - to setup a long post into multiple pages it’s pretty easy. First, just find the places in your post you want to break it into individual pages and place this code tag:
<!–nextpage–>
Next, right after that you want to insert this code tag and give each page a title:
<!–pagetitle:PAGE TITLE HERE–>Ok, now save your post. Next in your Wordpress dashboard go to your “Presentation->Theme Editor” and edit your Single Page or “single.php” file. You want to put this code (that displays the navigation) “before the loop” so it appears at the top of the page:
that’s the code to diplay the “default options” (as described on the plugin page). You can choose to change any of those options by adding them like this…
<div align="center">
<?php TA_content_jump('Page :',' ', 2, 2, 0, False, '«', '»'); ?>
</div>You can see on this post I chose to use the “ordered post” or list option (number 3). If you’re not used to writing code, just make sure that any content or text you want to add is in a single quote as in my last code example. Numbers and true or false don’t have to be. I with that this plugin had all these formatting options from the plugin options page in the Wordpress dashboard, but for now - it works just as well if you configure the options for yourself! This has to be my favorite hack out of the 10 because it does so much for usability, monetization, and SEO! Click below to go to the next hack…
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!
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