Displaying related posts after a blog article is one of the ways to keep your readers longer. If you’re able to show interesting topics right after someone finishes reading your post, you might get one additional page view. It allows you to retain your visitors while decreasing your bounce rates. More views are always good if you’re trying to make a blog successful.
Now there are many ways to display related posts. The easiest way to do anything in WordPress is to use a plugin. But which one to use is the ultimate question?
Use Jetpack – Related Posts
There are many of those out there. If you think about it, a good one already exists in your blog. It comes pre-packed with Jetpack. When you list all the modules of Jetpack, you will find something called Related Posts.
If it is not already activated, hover over it and click on Activate to use the features of this plugin.
Once activated, you can hover over it again and click on the configure link. There are only minimal configurations required for related posts to show in your blog. The option is also accessible from Settings > Reading of your WordPress admin. It is presented as Related posts in the reading options page, right under Search engine visibility.
In configuration, you will find just two checkboxes:
- Show a “Related” header to more clearly separate the related section from posts
- Use a large and visually striking layout
Check them on and off as per your preference. As for me, I prefer to turn both these options on. It allows visitors to clearly identify that the links that they are seeing are related posts. And the links are also presented in an eye-catching manner with big thumbnails that are hard to miss.
They are displayed right below your post and yes they’re responsive. If you’ve enabled other features of Jetpack like sharing buttons and WordPress.com likes, then you’ll find those above related posts. The post suggestions are displayed at the very end.
This plugin works with the help of WordPress.com infrastructure. Your content will be sent there and indexed. It takes some time for all the indexing to happen. So, you will have to wait a while before links are displayed. Based on the contents of your articles, this plugin will show the three most related ones.
Know that there isn’t an easy way for additional configurations yet like changing the header, the size of thumbnails or the number of related posts. If you need such options, then you’re better off using more powerful plugins like YARPP. If simplicity is what you want then just stick to using Jetpack’s Related Posts.