Late to the party again, I’ve finally got around to installing the Related Posts plugin on Blog-Op.

The main thing putting me off until now were the slightly basic instructions, but it’s up and running now, so I’ll attempt to simplify them below. Once installed, the plugin displays 1-10 related post titles automatically at the bottom of a post, with the intention of encouraging new visitors to read more than just the post they have arrived at.

First off, back up your WordPress database, and make sure you have a spare copy of your index.php file and your single.php file from your chosen WP theme.

1. Download the plugin, install and activate in the usual way.
2. Follow the Readme files instructions regarding the initial database setup. If you get the failure message , ignore it for now, as I got the message, but the initialization had occurred. You can always do the manual method later.
3. You now have to insert the small php excerpt in your theme where you want the related posts to appear. If you want them to appear below every post, insert it into the index.php file. If you want it to appear below only single posts, then insert the code into the single.php file only.
4. The instructions are to insert the code ‘anywhere in the loop’. Very helpful. What you need to look for in the code is the section started by “php if (have_posts()) “, and the loop ends at the section similar to “Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.” The wording may be slightly different according to your theme.
5. Place it where you want them to appear: It’s easy enough to make out where the comment box is called, or the post date/time appear, and I placed the code on an empty line above it.
6. You can use some very basic HTML to title the posts: I simply typed the text “Some Related Posts” just before the php code, and wrapped it in <strong> tags to make it bold. Have a play with formatting and positioning, as long as you have a backup, nothing is permanent, and no damage will be done!

I’ve been wanting to install this plugin for a while now, and I’m glad I took the plunge. As ever, if you need anymore help with it, just let me know.