Display Related Posts with Thumbnails in WordPress
If you visited my site regularly, you would notice that I had used a widget from Linkwithin to display related posts with thumbnails. I always want to show some relevant posts below a particular post because I think it can keep readers engaged with my blog, increase the traffic and decrease the bounce rate at the same time. I was very happy as Linkwithin did a pretty good job. However, I soon realized some downsides of this widget.
Firstly, when readers click on related posts, the widget will redirect to their website before going to my posts, it happens very fast as you could haven’t noticed it.
That is not the only disadvantage of this widget. Sometimes, Linkwithin’s server has problems with connecting, so it makes the loading speed of my site quite slower and it can’t continue loading for a while. In this case, related posts can’t be displayed.
Lastly, they said that related posts are chosen based on several factors, including title, tags, and content but I am totally unsatisfied with the posts displayed. They have nothing to do with the content of the article.
Those are the reasons why I had to remove the Linkwithin widget from my site and find an alternative solution. I have found many ways to display thumbnails for related posts. And I will introduce 2 of the best solutions:
- If you like Linkwithin and want to build a similar related posts section, visit this tutorial from Build Internet to create related posts with thumbnails. You can choose to style your related posts in any way by customizing the CSS code.
- If you don’t want to edit template files, you can make use of Wp-Thumbie plugin. This plugin will display related posts with thumbnail image automatically in content and feed.
If you know any other solutions, please share with us in the comment section below.
Selurus:
March 13th, 2010 at 1:43 am
Those related posts thumbnails look cool. Does this affect the page load time too much?
.-= Selurus´s last blog ..Theme Trials =-.
Tek3D:
March 13th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Yes, I’m sure these thumbnails will draw more attention of readers. With just 4 small images, the loading time can’t be affected much.
Omer Greenwald:
March 18th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Adding thumbnails to related posts is a good idea and increases the chances people will get to your older posts as well.
You can also check out the “no plugin” approach introduced here http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/how-to-add-related-posts-with-a-thumbnail-without-using-plugins/
However, it may have less accurate related posts than the plugin you are using
.-= Omer Greenwald´s last blog ..My First 45 Days of Blogging =-.
Tek3d:
March 19th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Yes, thanks for your tip.
In my first solution, it also doesn’t use plug-in to show thumbnails, YARPP Plugin is to find related posts only.
.-= Tek3d´s last blog ..How to Make a 3D Animation =-.
HuynhTrung from hutruc.com:
March 21st, 2010 at 8:47 am
You can use linkwithin.com to display Related Posts with Thumbnails
.-= HuynhTrung@hutruc.com´s last blog ..Loại bỏ Autop trong Wordrpess =-.
Tek3D:
March 21st, 2010 at 10:04 am
Yes, linkwithin could do the job but there are some problems as I refered in the post.
I’m sure you don’t want to make the loading time slower.
Pavan Kumar:
March 24th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Nice Plugin dude. Thanks for sharing. Presently i am using linkwithin.
.-= Pavan Kumar´s last blog ..How to change the Plesk Server repository backup directory path? =-.
Tek3D:
March 24th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Thanks Pavan. I’ve just visited your site but I don’t see the Linkwithin plugin.
Suresh Khanal:
March 26th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
They are looking great and attractive too!
But don’t you think they are giving sense of advertisements?
Have you studied the conversion rate? Are the readers actually clicking on those images?
It would be nice to learn if you share a bit about it.
Tek3D:
March 26th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I don’t think it looks like ads. My site is just a personal blog, so I don’t study conversion rate. But I see that the pageviews/visitor rate has increased by over 50% since I placed the thumbnails.
It will take more time to have a more precise statistic but now I’m satisfied with this
Peter:
March 31st, 2010 at 9:22 am
Nice post! I am sure it will help you get more pageview
.-= Peter´s last blog ..Ultra File Search- free tool help you search file more easily in Windows. =-.
Robin Benedict:
March 31st, 2010 at 10:36 am
very nice,
any way we can use linkwithin
.-= Robin Benedict´s last blog ..Kaspersky License Key & Activation Code =-.
Sehat:
April 7th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
I’m looking for this.. I guess I’m just gonna use the plugin..
are you kaskuser?
.-= Sehat´s last blog ..Want a Healthy Heart? Eat Chocolate 6 Gram/Day! =-.
Tek3D:
April 7th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Hope it will work for your blog
Btw, I don’t know what kaskuser is???
Sehat:
April 7th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
these icons ->
( 
eace:
they are kaskus icons, Kaskus is #1 Indonesian Forum, kaskus-er = the name for people who join Kaskus…
.-= Sehat´s last blog ..Want a Healthy Heart? Eat Chocolate 6 Gram/Day! =-.
Tek3D:
April 7th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Oh, I remember now. These icons are included in the custom smilies plugin, its name is Kaskus and I don’t know it is from an Indonesian Forum.
Thanks for your explanation.
Ileane from Basic Blog Tips:
November 2nd, 2010 at 7:14 am
Tuan, I was searching for tips about LinkWithin when I saw this post on Google. You’re ranking well for this. Now that I see all the issues you have with the plugin I plan to take your advice and go with WP-Thumbie. I installed it but I have a question for you, how do you get the thumbnails to go away?
Tek3D:
November 2nd, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Thanks Ileane, I didn’t notice this post has high rank on Google as I don’t see many visits from it.
About the WP-Thumbie, you can’t remove thumbnails because it is the main function of this plugin. If you just want to display related posts with excerpts, you should use the “Contextual Related Posts” or “YARPP” plugin.
I am using the “Efficient Related Posts” because I just want to show titles of these posts.
Hope this helps.
BLOG404:
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:09 pm
I used Linkwithin for first few days , but i was just unable to remove the backlink to linkwithin home page . Thus my blog was giving every backlink to linkwithin , thats why i moved to YARPP , its smarter than Linkwithin with more productive features with just thumbnails characteristic !
Thats what i am waitinf for
Tek3D:
November 2nd, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Yeah, that’s also what I experienced, Linkwithin is a big disappointment for us. Now I moved to a simple related post plugin after using the YARPP. I had some problems with displaying related posts with this plugin, especially in some old posts. Have you checked your posts for this problem?
BLOG404:
November 2nd, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Dude , which problem are you getting with YARPP ? Its running fine on my blog , even on old posts . What i think is , that you need to check the options in the setting of YARPP . Because there are lots and lots of options to choose form , i have enabled this plugin for only posts but not pages . Maybe there might be an option you must have missed / unchecked , check it once again you , will surely find solution
Tek3D:
November 2nd, 2010 at 9:08 pm
This problem happens on just very few posts. On these posts, there are some errors that appear on the top of my site and it takes very long to load completely.
I set as the default options, so I guess I haven’t done anything wrong.
I read in the FAQ of this plugin and they said that this plugin could slow down my blog too, so maybe the problem happened in the process.
Android:
December 19th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I am just using YARPP plugin and custom a new template to display it as well, with one thumbnail and link.
Aneeza Mubbashir:
May 4th, 2011 at 2:41 am
I don’t think it looks like ads. My site is just a personal blog, so I don’t study conversion rate. But I see that the pageviews/visitor rate has increased by over 50% since I placed the thumbnails.
quertime:
June 7th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for sharing.
You may check out the post below on How to Install Linkwithin Related Posts with Thumbnails on WordPress
http://www.quertime.com/article/arn-2010-11-09-1-how-to-install-linkwithin-related-posts-with-thumbnails-on-wordpress/
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Gold Price in Dubai:
October 5th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Use of Thumbnails in word press is really a good thing because by this you can post lots of things in some thumbnails and it take less space.
AJ:
December 4th, 2011 at 10:27 am
linkwithin is really good
thank you sir
Saeed Kheiree:
April 5th, 2012 at 12:56 am
thanks for good article…
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