How to Add Related Posts in WordPress Without a Plugin: A Comprehensive Guide

WordPress has become one of the most popular CMS platforms for web development. However, despite its simplicity and rich feature set, sometimes you may need to enhance your website functionality beyond what is provided by default. One such enhancement is the ability to display related posts in your articles. In this guide, I will walk you through the process of adding related posts to your WordPress blog without relying on a plugin. You'll learn how to code the necessary snippets and explanations, which will empower you to add similar functionalities in the future without needing additional tools.

Why Add Related Posts Without a Plugin?

Using a plugin is often the easiest way to add features like related posts, but it can also introduce bloat and potential security issues. By learning to do this manually, you gain greater control over your website and avoid the risk of plugin conflicts. Additionally, understanding the underlying code improves your coding skills and enhances your site's performance.

What You Will Need

To add related posts to your WordPress posts without a plugin, you will need the following:

Basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (though JavaScript is not required for this guide). Access to your WordPress website’s files, either through file manager or FTP client. Knowledge of how to use WordPress template files such as

Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Related Posts

Below are the detailed steps to follow to add related posts to your WordPress posts:

Step 1: Identify the Post IDs

The first step is to identify the post IDs from which you want to pull related posts. You can do this by examining the URL of the post and extracting the ID. For example, if the URL is /blog/post-name/1234, the ID is 1234.

Step 2: Create a Custom Query

Next, you need to create a custom query that will retrieve the related posts. This can be done using the WP_Query class in WordPress.

$related_posts  new WP_Query(array(
    'post__in'  array(1234, 5678, 91011), // Replace with post IDs
    'post_type'  'post',
    'post_status'  'publish',
    'ignore_sticky_posts'  1,
    'no_found_rows'  true,
));

In this example, replace the post IDs (1234, 5678, 91011) with the IDs of the related posts you want to display. Save these IDs to a variable to be used later in your theme file.

Step 3: Display the Related Posts in Your Theme Files

To display the related posts, you will need to add the code to the appropriate file in your theme (usually ).

?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?
    div class"related-posts"
        h2Related Posts/h2
        ul
            ?php while ($related_posts-have_posts()) : $related_posts-the_post(); ?
                lia href"?php the_permalink(); ?"?php the_title(); ?/a/li
            ?php endwhile; wp_reset_postdata(); ?
        /ul
    /div
?php endwhile; endif; ?

This code creates a container for the related posts and loops through the related posts array to display each one. The wp_reset_postdata() function is used to reset the global post object after the custom query.

Enhance Your Blog with Custom Code

Mastering the art of custom coding not only improves your blog’s functionality but also enhances your technical skills. By learning to write your own code, you become less dependent on plugins and have greater control over your website’s performance and security.

Further Learning Opportunities

If you’re interested in further developing your coding skills, I highly recommend the following courses:

HTML: Learn the basics of HTML and how to create and structure web pages. CSS: Dive into CSS to learn how to style your web pages and make them visually appealing. JavaScript: Master JavaScript to add interactivity and dynamic elements to your website.

By learning these coding languages, you’ll be able to enhance your WordPress site and many other websites in the future.

Conclusion

Adding related posts to your WordPress site is a simple process that can greatly enhance the user experience. By following this guide, you’ve learned how to do it without relying on a plugin, giving you greater control over your blog’s functionality. Continue to explore and expand your coding skills to take your site to the next level!

Remember, the more you learn, the more you can do. Happy coding!