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.

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