If you run a website or blog that is regularly updated with recent content, sooner or later you will likely have many articles covering a wide variety of topics. This means that finding posts that relate to each other in some way can become difficult for your users. Website owners use many different tactics to circumvent this problem, such as adding internal links to your posts or placing different categories of posts in an easily visible place on your site – the latter being considered the one of the most practical uses of WordPress taxonomies. And while these strategies can come in handy, there’s nothing more effective than displaying your related posts somewhere on your page using one of the many plugins available for WordPress related posts. .
Users will be more likely to click on articles that are somehow related to the article with a topic they originally came for. They are more likely to want to know more about it and explore it from different angles. For example, if the original article was about the 10 best craft breweries in their city, publishing related articles such as “10 tips for brewing your beer” or “Ale vs. Lager: what’s the difference” will likely make them click on those articles as well, i.e. compared to putting up articles that have nothing to do with beer.
Not only can posting related posts help make some of your old posts relevant again, but it can also increase your users’ engagement, boost your pageviews and extend the time they spend browsing your website. Naturally, this means that your bounce rate will also be reduced.
So, with that said, we urge you to check out some of the best WordPress-related post plugins that can be found on the web:
Custom Related Posts
This is a great user-friendly tool for manually inserting related posts into your pages, posts, or any other type of custom post. With the Custom Related Posts plugin, you can easily determine for which post types the plugin will be active, choose if you want to display your related posts using a shortcode, widget or block, and eventually display featured images in the size of your choice. Of course, you have full control over your related posts and can easily define relationships in the post editor. The plugin is a classic editor and compatible with Gutenberg.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
Although the rather modest name of the Yet another related article The plugin may not make you believe it is among the best of its kind – and over 100,000 installs of the plugin attest to that. This comprehensive plugin not only displays pages, posts, and custom post types related to the current page or post your visitors are on, but it offers a handy template system that gives you complete and advanced control over how you display your related posts.
Using a versatile algorithm that considers post titles, content, tags, categories, and custom taxonomies, YARPP finds the content on your WordPress site that is most relevant to the post in question. If you want, you can display your related posts in your RSS feeds, embed them in your JavaScript or web application, or use a shortcode to place them wherever you want.
Related articles by taxonomy
Similar Items by Taxonomy is another great plugin in this category that can find related posts in various taxonomy and post types (posts with the most terms in common will appear at the top). If you prefer, you can add or remove specific search terms and customize the look of your related posts using templates from your child theme. Other features of the plugin include the ability to display related posts as thumbnails, links, full posts or excerpts, the automatic display of linked articles after article content, the ability to limit search by post date, number or meta, etc You can add related posts to your sidebar using a widget, or ensure it appears below your post using a shortcode.
Online Related Articles
Compared to other plugins on our list, Online Related Articles works a little differently. Namely, instead of displaying related articles below your post, it puts them inside the content itself, hence the name of the plugin. This is a popular method to display related posts especially among some of the global companies that use WordPress for their website or blog.
In addition to putting related articles in your content, you also have the option to automatically add multiple boxes in your posts, detect all line breaks and choose from over 20 style combinations, including themes, colors, and rollovers.
Contextual related articles
Just like the name Contextual related articles indicates, this powerful plugin lists article suggestions based on the title and the content itself, making them as relevant as possible. This can easily help you capture the attention of your visitors to stay on your website longer. The plugin comes with an abundance of useful features such as Thumbnail support, the ability to automatically extract the first image of your post so it can be displayed as a thumbnail, and the ability to style your related posts the way you prefer using custom CSS. Once the plugin is installed and activated, the plugin will automatically start showing related posts on your site. Moreover, you also get full support for Gutenberg and Classic editors and you can add your related posts with a shortcode (where you want in your post) or a widget (in any widgetized area).
Related Posts Thumbnails Plugin
Related Articles Thumbnails is a plugin that lets you easily add related posts with image thumbnails. You will be able to customize your thumbnail sizes, as well as set display settings and relationship type (categories, tags, categories and tags, random or custom taxonomies). The thumbnails will be placed under your message with the title and/or the excerpt of the message. Additionally, you will be able to determine the specific page/post types for which you want to display related posts and customize elements such as background, border and text color, as well as title and post length. ‘extract.
Conclusion
With the help of a proper plugin, adding related posts to your posts for the purpose of improving your readers’ engagement is extremely easy to do. Majority of the plugins we mentioned above come with shortcodes that allow you to easily insert related articles wherever you want, whether at the top, in the middle or at the very end of your content. Most plugins will also allow you to add your related posts to the sidebar area of your blog. So it doesn’t matter if you use your theme’s pre-made widget areas, custom widget areas, or different sidebars for each post or page, adding a related posts widget using one plugins from our list will be a breeze.
