It’s tough enough to get a visitor to read one piece of content on your website, what about getting that same visitor to read more of your stuff? Traditionally, this would be done through using internal links, by linking out to relevant content, but even then – the chances of readers hitting through are quite shallow. What else is there to do, to make our readers aware of the great content that we’ve got to show?
Benefits of Related Posts
Related posts is definitely a wonderful solution to do this, and while it may be difficult to implement a proper related post technique into a custom management system, WordPress themes and plugins make it incredibly easy, sometimes a simple install and activate is all that is necessary to power your posts with related content.
We at MH Themes take pride for our WordPress themes, and because we understand how important it is to have features such as related posts for any news, magazine or blogging site out there – we have built our themes so that you don’t have to worry about installing plugins at all. Our WordPress themes come integrated with the feature of displaying related posts below your content areas. Read more about it: How do related posts work?
The above picture shows what the related posts can look like on our MH Magazine WordPress theme. If you’re currently operating under a free WordPress theme, or a theme from another provider, but still need a related posts solution, the following roundup will give you an idea of what kind of related posts plugins are out there, and what might be the best choice for your own site.
1. WordPress Related Posts
The related posts plugin from Zemanta excels with thumbnails, and the ability to cache your related posts for a quicker page load time. They used to provide analytics for the related posts as well, but that feature seems to have become obsolete. You can rely on automatic features of this plugin, or you can specify your own related posts for each piece of content individually, and there are custom styling options available as well.
2. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
Otherwise known as YARPP, this might be the most popular WordPress related posts plugin out there, and thanks to the sophisticated algorithm – the related posts displayed by using this plugin are usually with 95%+ accuracy. You can select a simple list view, or a more appealing thumbnail view, depending on the requirements of your own site.
3. Yuzo ̵ Related Posts
Yuzo is built with accuracy in mind, the goal of the plugin is to provide as accurate related posts results as possible, while boasting as many as 50+ different design options and option structures. The newest version of the plugin enables you to display related posts as a widget, all of which can be modified according to your own specific needs. It’s easy to use, and it certainly is intuitive. There are so many style options available that Yuzo will cater even to the most complex designs out there.
4. Contextual Related Posts
Contextual Related Posts has been around for long enough to have gained a solid community following, and because of its mature age, the features of the plugin have expanded significantly over the last couple of years. The related posts content is built upon the relevancy of titles and content itself of your posts, giving you the highest accuracy possible.
Everyone knows that related posts plugins helps to retain your visitors on more pages, to some great tips to engage visitors on your website that seem to be ever so low, and to increase the longevity of older pieces of content that perhaps would otherwise be abandoned. Contextual Related Posts takes care of all this gracefully and with ease.
5. Related Posts for WordPress
The last related posts plugin on our list is all about manual related posts. It’s cool to have a computer generate it all for you, but if you’re managing a niche website with concise and definitive pieces of content, it might be a good idea to add all the related posts manually, so as to retain their each individual value, and give the readers the best possible related content as well. You’re the producer of the content anyway, so accuracy shouldn’t be an issue, or should we say – relevancy. Find out more about the Related Posts for WordPress Plugin.
The Best Related Posts Plugins for WordPress
Currently these WordPress plugins for related posts are the ones that you’ll find most website owners and bloggers talking about. To find the right one for you, just go ahead and try and test them on your website. Keep in mind, that you should only use those plugins, that are updated and maintained on a regular basis to prevent unnecessary issues on your website. Regarding the installation of plugins, you also might want to read this article: Things to consider when installing a new WordPress plugin.
