Wordpress Hack #5: 10 Ways to Improve Navigation
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6. How to Add Related Posts After Content in Wordpress
Let’s face it, if you’re a blogger, then you’re a marketer - right? That’s why blogging isn’t just “writing” it’s also a lot of “online marketing” as well. The same concepts apply to a blog that apply in everyday life. You get a receipt at the supermarket, there’s an ad on the back. You’re at the checkout and there’s all kinds of things displayed to buy that you might have forgotten. The department store asks you if you want to apply for a credit card to get 10% off. The drug store gives you special rewards by using their “card” and prints coupons you might be interested in based on what you buy.
Inference. Relevance. Upselling.
All things you can do in a blog.
Beyond an article or a page (the content), your job is to design a blog:
- that’s easy to read…
- that’s monetized well…
- that’s easy to use…
- that keeps them reading as long as possible…
- and that makes them want to come back…
I can’t think of a better way to keep someone reading on your blog than automatically recommending relevant content to them as soon as they are done with the current post. I’ve used a LOT of plugins for this, and for me (right now) the easiest to implement, easiest to style, and the most painless over time (maintaining) has been Aizatto’s Related Posts. The original web site and author for this have disappeared, so that link is a zipped copy of what I’m using right now. If I come come across a better (and more supported) version, or an update on this version I’ll update this article right away.
I like this Related Posts plugin because it automatically inserts the related post block after your content, and you don’t have to paste any code in your template or theme files at all. It’s VERY dirt simple to implement (and has worked for me up do Wordpress 2.3.3). I’ve yet to test it in 2.5. You can choose in options how many related posts to show, how many words in the title, you can show excerpts (or not), and you can choose whether or not to show on “pages”, posts, and even your RSS feed. You can turn the auto-inserting off as well, and manually place the related block if it doesn’t appear in your theme where you would like it. You can style it by writing and pasting style code right in the options page - so again, no code hacking in your stylesheet or uploading a plugin stylesheet. You can see it in action on my homepage.
If you’re interested in some other options, check out Customizable Post Listings, and Random Posts - both seem to be well supported up to Wordpress 2.5.
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