How To Add Popular Posts In Your WordPress Sidebar
Why would you want to add popular posts to your sidebar?
- As a money maker – make sure to add affiliate marketing links to these posts, they’ll continue to be read often.
- Readers love seeing ‘the best of the best’
- Tends to keep readers on your site longer, which Google loves – readers will come to read your latest post but wind up reading your top posts too because of #2 above!
So let’s get started!
How To Add Popular Posts In Your WordPress Sidebar
- Log in to the backend of your WordPress dashboard. Then go to PLUGINS > ADD NEW. In the search field type in ‘popular posts’. You’re going to want to find the plugin called WordPress Popular Posts.
- On WordPress Popular Posts, click on INSTALL NOW button, then ACTIVATE button. This will place the WordPress Popular Posts plugin into your plugins.
- Next, go to APPEARANCE > WIDGETS. Under available widgets you will find the WordPress Popular Posts.
- Drag and drop the WordPress Popular Posts into your ‘sidebar widget’ area. Note: Depending on your theme, yours might not be titled ‘primary sidebar’ like mine, it might be something as simple as ‘sidebar’.
- Fill in the form areas similar to what I have above and click on SAVE button.
- Preview your site on the front end and you’ll see your newly created ‘Popular Posts’ in your sidebar. Voila!
Note: You don’t have to fill in the form areas EXACTLY like mine, perhaps you want to show 4 or 5 popular posts rather than 3, or you prefer to set a specific time range, or a different size. Play around with it and decide what’s best for you!
Here’s what mine looked like on the front end after I installed the plugin:
And here’s another real life example of our client Annie of Zevy Joy – showcasing popular posts in her wordpress sidebar. She’s so talented, you’ll have to go check her out.
I hope you enjoyed learning how to add popular posts in your wordpress sidebar! It’s pretty easy and something you can add to your own site today (in less than 5 minutes).
Looks like I have a new task for my “in-house web developer” to do! Hahaha!
That man must hate me!!! Hahaha