Most blogs that run on the WordPress platform usually show their articles in chronological order because it is the platform’s default.
This method makes sure that your visitors only see the latest that you have to offer. Tactics like this are great for keeping your viewers interested and help with SEO as well.
However, the drawback of doing things this way is that if you have a lot of content on your website, eventually, the old posts will get buried. As a result, you will get fewer views on those articles.
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That is not an ideal situation, to say the least. That’s why internal link building is essential for your website since it keeps the visitors engaged with your content. It’s going to make them look at articles and click on posts or pages on your site even more.
The longer they stay on your blog, the better that’s for you. Displaying only the latest and most recent articles on a sidebar will not keep your visitors interested since the topics might vary from what they want. Therefore we do not recommend that you do that.
Instead, you could show articles that relate to the main one. It could be related to the topic or category that generally performs better. Adding internal links is one of the oldest and most important rules for your blog. At definitely works well, but now there are new options.
Another option that works well is adding related posts to the main article that the visitor is reading. It could be in the footer area, at the end of the article, and even at the sidebar. It’s not going to change the look of your blog at all. It will only add additional content for your visitors to find.
This article will list some of the best related post plugins that you can use on your blog. I recommend you look at this carefully and consider adding it since it will only improve the user experience.
Why Are Related Posts Essential?
Let’s say that visitors happen to click on your article after they found it on the search index because you have good SEO. They read through the article and became interested in follow-up articles or topics about the one they just read.
If you have internal links, they could find something that piques their interest, but that’s not always the case. So what do they do now? The first option is to search on the internet again, which doesn’t guarantee that the visitor will be back on your website.
The second option is for them to look at the article’s end if there’s a related post. If there is such a related post at the end of the article, it will hopefully get their attention. Eventually, they will engage with it.
This is a method that every prominent blog uses to keep the audience interested and always on their site. Related posts are essential for your website because that way, the visitors spend more time on it.
That is the whole idea behind related posts, and as you know, the more time they spend on your website, the better it is for you. From increased page views to increased engagement and time spent on your website, you should focus on all these critical metrics.
Best Related Posts Plugins for WordPress
1.Related Posts Thumbnails Plugin for WordPress
This is a great plugin that’s going to help you set up related posts in your blog. The Related Posts Thumbnails plugin is for free on the WordPress plugin marketplace, and everyone can download it without much hassle.
Using this plugin, you can show the related posts wherever you want in the article since a Gutenberg block was added that does that for you. This feature is incredibly cool since not all of you might want to display the related articles at the bottom of the page; some prefer the sidebar, for example.
You have complete control about what posts are allowed to be displayed in the related posts block, which means you can manually select them, have them selected from a category, etc. One of the best features that this plugin offers is putting a video as a thumbnail on the related posts.
That is awesome since it gives a sneak peek at what they can expect in the following article. It’s a fast and light plugin that’s not going to take a lot of server resources. Even though there aren’t many other customization features, I feel that it can do the job very well, considering this is a free plugin.
It’s not going to cost you anything since it’s free, and you can get it from the link that I have provided or search in the WordPress plugin marketplace.
2.Contextual Related Posts
The Contextual Related Posts plugin is one of the best in this niche and has been around for quite some time. It has some great features that are going to make the related posts look as seamless as possible. The installation setup is straightforward as this plugin can be found in the WordPress plugin marketplace, and it’s completely free.
You can display a list of related articles on your blog post, and the best thing about it it’s that the list it’s going to generate itself. It looks for context clues based on the article’s text and finds the best possible content to put on display.
This is remarkably creative and a great way to show articles that viewers might be interested in, ensuring that they stay on your site for as long as possible. The Contextual Related posts plugin differs from the other from accessibility and functionality that it has.
You can insert the related posts list via a custom block in Guttenberg, a widget, or even shortcodes. You can choose to display whatever you want from custom articles, article categories, pages, and even add attachments in the related posts list.
If you want to get specific with it, you can also add the excerpt and thumbnail images. The customization ability with this plugin is excellent; you can modify the HTML code quickly, and if you want, you can add your custom CSS codes.
There are templates as well that are offered with the plugin, and if you are an advanced user, you can edit those too. The biggest drawback of the plugin is its algorithm. Even though it’s excellent and works well, it doesn’t consider things such as user behavior, past interactions, etc.
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3.Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
The YARPP or Yet Another Related Posts Plugin is one of the most widely used plugins in WordPress for this niche. It displays related content on your blog posts based on the work of an algorithm.
It functions by looking at the title name, the content, categories, tags and generates matches from your archive that fit the best. It’s going to increase your page views and improve the user experience of your visitors a lot.
This plugin is straightforward to install and set up since it’s free, and you can find it in the WordPress plugin marketplace. It has a few templates from which you can pick on and display the articles.
However, you are limited about the placement, you can use a widget, but there’s no block for Gutenberg. If you want to display the related posts, you need to modify the theme; otherwise, there’s no option.
Another drawback that this plugin has is that it’s resource-hungry. If you don’t necessarily have the accessible server resources, then this plugin would be a bad idea for you. Make sure you read the requirements before installing this plugin on your blog.
Therefore, to add video content on your website easily, you can install WordPress video plugins.
4.Related Posts by Taxonomy
The Related Posts by Taxonomy plugin will help you increase engagement on your website by showing related posts. You can display the posts in any location with a widget or shortcode. It automatically generates the list for you no matter what category or tags are used; it will always find related content.
The plugin also offers multiple display locations and styles; you can choose to include the thumbnails, links, show the excerpt or even open the full posts. In contrast with the last plugin on the list, this one has a small footprint, so it doesn’t require much server resources.
This is a big deal since it also helps a lot with SEO by keeping the site’s speed unchanged. The list is really customizable so that you can always show your visitors whatever you want. You can limit the posts’ selection by date, limit the meta description length, the number of posts, and much more.
The plugin has some limitations, such as not having a Gutenberg block to display the related posts possible only by a shortcode or the widget. Also, the display box is customizable only by adding custom code in your theme’s style.css file.
That means that it requires an advanced user and knowledge of CSS to make the changes. However, this is a free plugin, and not everything it’s going to be perfect.
If you have a WordPress website, and your sidebar or footer area is empty, then you can add the widgets plugin to take your site to the next level.
5.Jetpack Related Module
Jetpack is one of the most popular plugins on WordPress. It can do a lot of things from Site Security, Performance, Site Analytics and a lot more. It has over 30 modules, and each one does a great job. One of those modules is the Related posts module. There you can modify & edit the related posts that you can show on your website.
Once activated, this module will scan all your content on the archive and analyze which one of them is a better fit with the main article. By enabling the related posts in the plugin module section, you can show the related posts at the end of the article.
If you want to display them somewhere else, you can use the related posts block in the Gutenberg editor. One of the best features about the Jetpack plugin is that even though it does many things simultaneously, it’s not going to slow down your website since the analysis and processing happens in the cloud.
Jetpack is also really user-friendly; you literally can enable this feature by toggling a switch. This simplicity is suitable for beginners, but more experienced WordPress users might want more customization features that Jetpack simply doesn’t offer.
Still, you can’t complain because you get all these fantastic features and a powerful plugin entirely for free. You can download it from the WordPress marketplace instantly.
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Closing Thoughts
As you saw from the list above, some great plugins will help you show the related posts. Having related or recommended articles to watch at the end of the blog post you just read is something that everyone is already used to.
And if you have a blog and don’t show the related articles, it looks unusual & definitely going to hurt you long term. I’m sure that once you read through the article, you will find the right plugin that meets all your needs.
I have compiled on this list some of the best plugins that you can find out there. If you have any questions about any of the plugins, don’t hesitate to leave a question below. I will try and reply to every one of them as soon as possible.