One very well received new feature of our new design here was the “Favorites” section that I setup in our sidebar. Basically, it is a part of our blog where we selected our favorite articles that were no longer in plain view for our readers and made them more easily accessible.
Before I redesigned Blogussion, I wrote a little about this idea of creating a favorite post section in my article with tips on how to drive traffic to old posts. Some people really liked the idea, and I loved the idea myself – so I implemented it here.
I really think this is just an amazing way to keep old posts into circulation, and it has proven itself to do so. The two major effects we have seen so far from posts listed on this page are:
- Posts on this page have received more views and comments
- Their activity on social networking sites such as StumbleUpon was up from before this page was created
Charts are always a great way to back statements up, and here is a screenshot from Analytics for posts with the highest pageviews this week:
Posts buried pages back are now within the top 5 most viewed posts for the week
I hope that the above is motivation enough for you to follow this tutorial and implement this idea onto your blog. This is a really great way to put the spotlight back onto old posts. Now, I’m going to teach you how exactly to do it! It’s a pretty simple thing to setup really, so it shouldn’t take you very long. Alright, let’s get started!
Step 1: Create a Category
I told you this was going to be easy. For step one, all you need to do is create a category! Call it something like “Favorites.” This category is the key to setting up your favorite posts section on your blog.
Once you have setup this category, it’s time for you to start populating it with posts. So, what you need to do now is go through your articles and pick out your favorite ones. Once you find your favorite posts, just add them to your “Favorites” category.
This process may sound tedious, especially if you have almost 250 posts like we did (I love bragging). But, oddly enough I found it rather enjoyable to go through all of the old posts on this blog and pick out the best of the best.
Step 2: Downloading the “Latest Posts by Category” Plugin
I chose to use a plugin by a blogger I respect a lot, Alex Cristache from Blogsessive. I use his plugin both here on Blogussion, and my other blog Asnio. It’s a super plugin, and makes setting something like a favorite posts section in your sidebar super easy!
Just click the awesome box below to go over to Blogsessive page and download it real quick. Don’t forget to come back now!
Setting the plugin up is easy, and lucky for all of us Alex has written a highly detailed instruction manual for using the plugin. Don’t forget to check that out in the plugin folder included in the download.
Step 3: Setting the Plugin up
If you have a widgetized sidebar, then you can simply throw in the widget wherever you want. If you don’t use widgetized sidebars, I recommend you read the documentation over at Blogsessive so you can find all of the codes for inserting this manually.
Configuring the Widget Options
Lucky for those of us with widgets, customizing the output of this plugin is as simple as checking a few boxes.
In your Widgets panel, you will find all of the options for customizing this widget. But, the one important thing that you do is select your “Favorites” category under the Categories to display: section in the options.
Now that you have checked the box and saved the settings, you should see the list of your favorite posts on your blog. Like I said, there are many other options you may want to check out to make the best use of this plugin.
A great thing about this plugin is that it leaves plenty of room for customization. By default, you just have a simple list of these posts. But, with a little CSS you can make the output look great. I’ll share with you a few tricks I did to make my list look so great here.
Again, I highly recommend you read the documentation Alex wrote so you can get the full idea of how this plugin woks.
Can now hold more content with less scrolling
Splitting the list into two columns
All it takes to split these posts into multiple columns is a little CSS. Lucky for us, this plugin comes with its very own class names which makes styling it extremely easy. Alex really thought of everything when he created this plugin, I’ll tell you that much!
So to split these lists into columns, open up your stylesheet (usually style.css) and add the following lines of CSS in there:
li.lpbcWidgetPost {
float: left;
padding: 0 0 1em 1em; /* adds spacing to the right and bottom of each item */
width: 45%; /* will probably need adjusting depending on the width of its parent */
}
Now, this is the part where I think I will lose some people – so don’t be afraid to ask me any questions about this in the comments section.
But basically the whole idea is to float all of the content within the <li> tag to the left, which will then align everything horizontally rather than vertically. You add a little padding to separate the content, and add a width so you can limit how many posts show per line. You can decrease this width so you can have three or more columns if you wish.
Thesis Users: Add Special Styling to your “Favorites” page
As you can see, the formatting at the top of our favorite posts page has a different formatting at the top then the rest of the category pages here have. I added these extra things to that page so people who visit it knew what kind of content was there.
Luckily this is very easy to change around and if you use the wonderful Thesis Framework, all you need to do is add a little code to your custom_functions.php file:
function custom_archive_info() { if (is_category('favorites')) { ?>
<div>
<div>
<h1><?php single_cat_title(); ?></h1>
</div>
<div>
<!-- CONTENT HERE -->
</div>
</div>
<?php }
else
thesis_default_archive_info();
}
remove_action('thesis_hook_archive_info', 'thesis_default_archive_info');
add_action('thesis_hook_archive_info', 'custom_archive_info');
Code used from Sugarrae’s tutorial
Hoping for Similar Results
This technique has worked pretty well for us so far, and I would love to know what you guys think of it as well! I do hope that this was an easy tutorial to follow, and I am trying to improve my tutorial writing skills since the last one I wrote about how to create the orange RSS box we have here.
Good luck, and let us know how this technique has effected the traffic to old posts on your blog!
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?I agree that no matter professional site or just an amateur blog both should have some ideas of presenting the content in easy and accessible way. Visible menu is good idea but also some of ideas you mentioned. The whole thought of giving people access to everything easily and instantly is very good and I think that everyone should thing about this for a second or two.
Thanks Alicia! This feature is extremely useful, and I do agree – any site should have something setup like this.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
You guys might be mind readers. Thanks for this! Looking forward to implementing this on my own site.. I’ll start thinking of my next needed improvement and look for a post on it next week, haha
.-= Jenny´s last blog ..How I Brought Sexy Back (in a High School Musical bathing suit) =-.
You don’t seriously need this? I honestly found your content so interesting I went back a few pages myself the other day just to read some of your stuff. :p
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Very informative and useful tips. I will make sure to go through this tutorial to implement those tips. Thank you.
Sounds good, glad you enjoyed it!
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Very neat idea and superb execution on this tutorial/guide. The css column tip alone helped me a lot
But I wonder if there is similar solution could be done with tags, instead of using a category? I’d like to keep the one category per post, but I’m already using “article” tag for the more detailed and longer articles which I also promote on the top posts -page. I could use that tag, or start adding a new favorites-tag and utilize that.
.-= Antti Kokkonen´s last blog ..Do You Have The Entrepreneurial Spirit? =-.
Thanks Antti, the columns are one of my favorite things about the look of it!
I never thought to use tags, but this just about sums it up for you!
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Thanks for the tips! I’m giving my blog a bit of a makeover this week, and this will help!
By the way, do you have a recommendation for a “popular posts” plugin?
.-= Jodi Kaplan´s last blog ..A Marketing Mistake You Should Never Make =-.
Glad to hear that Jodi, make overs are always fun!
I totally recommend the popular posts plugin by Rob Marsh: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/popular-posts-plugin/ It is extremely customizable, probably the most out of any Popular posts plugins at the moment.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Thanks! I’ll go check it out.
.-= Jodi Kaplan´s last blog ..Is Your Marketing Missing Its Target? =-.
I’ve just started using thesis and it’s an awesome theme, but
tweaking the design seems close to impossible for me…
Even with the great tutorials you guys provide here, I am clueless about
where to start…
Thanks nevertheless
Igor
.-= Igor Kheifets-IgorHelpsYouSucceed´s last blog ..Subliminal Affirmations Software-Turn Your Dreams and Goals Into Reality With Only 10 Minutes a Day! =-.
Igor, it was hard for me at first but if you just experiment for a while then you will figure it out.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Great topic. Adding a features area has been an burning issue for me and I know I need to get around to it. Maybe today is the day!
.-= Gabe | freebloghelp.com´s last blog ..Brand identity, part III – Building your brand identity long-term =-.
This is definitely a feature you would want to add Gabe!
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Good suggestion, but one thing to note. If you create a category, you’ll always need to deal with that category in any category navigation you have. I use a tag instead. On my personal blog, I use the tag “my favs” which makes them accessible via a php call like yours above, but also via a link to the tag’s archive. Just a slight variation if you’re protective over how you use categories.
.-= Brandon Cox´s last blog ..Great Online Hangouts for Bloggers =-.
I never even thought to use a tag Brandon, awesome suggestion there!
I honestly might have to rethink the process I have going on here now because of that. Thanks man.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
I certainly need to set aside some time to go back and see which of my posts can be linked to other posts. The other things I have definitely been slacking off on is that I haven’t done a sitemap for my blog. I was using a plugin for that but it was giving me some issues. Now I need to find out the best way to do this without it giving me trouble.
Thanks so much for the step by step on how to do this.
all the best,
Eren
.-= Eren Mckay´s last blog ..How to cure severe anxiety & get rid of it =-.
I made a sitemap a long time ago and I forgot about it…I think I need to check on it and see if it even exists anymore! Thanks for bringing that up!
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
I was thinking about such a widget and you just posted a tutorial about it! Awesome! I will try it out.
.-= Mr. I´s last blog ..Tutorial: Install WordPress In Fewer Than 5 Minutes =-.
Well, the plugin used is a widget so in a sense – yeah, that’s all it is.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
Having a “Favorite Posts” section on your site can really help boosts traffic to your old posts, and by having a step by step guide you put in here i know it will really help a lot to those who want to put “Favorite “posts” on their own site
As we have found out first hand here, your statement is dead on!
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
I really am thrilled that I found your blog, I recently installed the Thesis theme and have been doing all kinds of different things to it. You do one of the best jobs of combining customization with look and results, retweeted.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Facebook is No Longer Sacred =-.
I love this site design, it’s just amazing. So, every design tip from you is really valuable.
Thanks for sharing this.
.-= David | ilcantone.com´s last blog ..ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE: How to Turn $5 Into $650 in 2 Hours =-.
John & David – Thanks a lot guys, I am really happy you like our stuff.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life =-.
So, that’s how you do it.
I think we can also use categories RSS feed for it but yeah, the plugin will give the better view.
.-= Dana @ Online Knowledge´s last blog ..Atahualpa 3.4.4 Configuration =-.
Speaking as a tutorial hater by trade, good job man.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Mistakes To Avoid While Designing Your Landing Page – Guest Post =-.
I have been looking for a way to do this on one of my old home decorating sites. Thanks a lot for the walk through. You’ve been a tremendous help.
.-= Kate @ Black chandeliers´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
Nice tutorial on the subject. I like the fact that it includes a snippet of the old blog posts rather than just links. Helps to draw the eyes over to that column.
.-= How To Jake´s last blog ..How To Find a Temp Job =-.
every design tip from you is really valuable.
Thanks for sharing this.
Excellent tutorial. I have a similar thing on my blog, but I did it manually using widgets. Thanks for showing us how to automate it.
.-= Sba´s last blog ..Phone.com Review-Get a 1800 Number =-.
Thanks Alex, really liked this.
I needed something like this! Very helpful.
Thanks Alex. I just found this via your post about headline writing techniques. Absolutely love learning on blogussion
.-= Alex Monroe´s last blog ..The Entrepreneur All Star Football Team =-.
Hello,
I followed your instructions to create the “Favorite Posts” section, but the visualization is different whether I open the page with Google Chrome (2 columns) or with Firefox (1 column). Any suggestion?
.-= Giovanni Cappellotto´s last blog ..Creativity Day, 18 maggio a Milano: Get in the Ring =-.
Do you noIndex that new favorites category page to avoid duplicate content issues?
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