In this tutorial, we are going to show you two ways to display related posts on your WordPress website.
If you know a bit about bounce rate, you are probably already showing related posts on your website. Essentially, the bounce rate is a metric that measures the percentage of people who land on your website and do completely nothing on the page they entered. So they don’t click on a menu item, a ‘read more’ link or any other internal links on the page. This can have an effect on things such as your AdSense earnings. By following this tutorial and adding Related Posts to your WordPress; you are killing three birds with one stone. You are decreasing your bounce rate, increasing your AdSense income, and lastly, you are increasing your page views. As always, we will show you two methods in which you can add related posts to your WordPress website.
How to Display Related Posts in WordPress without a Plugin
As always, we start with our preferred method of adding this without a plugin. In our example, we are going to display two related posts which link to the post. We are adding the featured image, the category, the date, the title and a read more button.
The code can simply be pasted into your single.php file in a position in which you want to display your related posts.
// Related Posts
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
if ($tags) {
echo '<h3>Related Posts</h3>';
$first_tag = $tags[0]->term_id;
$args=array(
'tag__in' => array($first_tag),
'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
'posts_per_page' => 2, // How many Posts to display
'caller_get_posts' => 1 // A way to turn sticky posts off in a query.
);
$my_query = new WP_Query($args);
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
<?php if(get_the_post_thumbnail_url()) { ?>
<img alt="Related - <?php the_title(); ?>" src="<?php echo get_the_post_thumbnail_url(); ?>" />
<?php } else { ?>
<div class="img-holder"></div>
<?php } ?>
</a>
<?php $category = get_the_category(); ?>
<p><?php echo $category[0]->cat_name; ?> / <?php echo get_the_date(); ?></p>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><h4><?php the_title(); ?></h4></a>
<a class="btn" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Read More</a>
<?php
endwhile;
}
wp_reset_query();
}
How to Display Related Posts in WordPress with a Plugin
A plugin can be used instead to do a similar thing. We used Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) which gives a list of posts or pages related to the current blog post.
The key features of this plugin are:
- You can use thumbnail or list view for your related content.
- It will display related posts, pages, and custom post types.
- It has a templating system which gives you advanced control of how your results are displayed.
- It has an advanced and versatile algorithm. This is a fully customisable algorithm which considers post titles, content, tags, categories, and custom taxonomies. A very great feature to ensure your posts are accurately related to the post.
- It includes an option to display related posts in RSS feeds with custom display options.
- It includes REST API support which enables you to embed related posts in your web or JavaScript-driven app!
- It includes shortcode support. So you can simply add the
[yarpp]shortcode to place related posts anywhere you like. - It supports HTTPS and WordPress Multisite
- And it's a plugin that is maintained with regular updates
Sounds good right? Download YARPP.
Conclusion
We now know of two methods on how we can add Related Posts to our WordPress website. We also now know the importance of how this can improve our bounce rate. So, which method did you prefer? Let us know in the comments below!
