How to Add Featured Posts in Your WordPress Sidebar (2023)
Are you looking for ways to highlight your best content and drive more traffic to your most important articles? Featuring posts in your WordPress sidebar is a great way to do this.
By showcasing your top posts in the sidebar, you can help your visitors discover your pillar content more easily. This is especially useful if you want to drive traffic to your high-converting posts or revenue-generating affiliate articles and sponsored posts.
In this guide, we‘ll show you four methods to add featured posts to your WordPress sidebar. You can choose the one that works best for your needs, or follow the steps for each method to experiment with different styles.
Let‘s get started!
Method 1: Manually Add Featured Posts Using the List Widget
The first method to add featured posts to your sidebar doesn‘t require any plugins. You can simply use the built-in List widget in WordPress to create a list of links.
Here are the steps:
Go to Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard.
Find the List widget and drag it into your sidebar area.
Click on the List widget to expand its settings.
Add a title for your featured posts list, e.g. "Popular Articles".
In the text area, add the titles of the posts you want to feature. Select each title and click the Link button to hyperlink it to the post‘s URL.
Click the Save button.
To make your list stand out more, you can add a Heading widget above your List widget. Drag a Heading widget right above the List widget.
Give your heading a title like "Featured Articles" and choose the heading level (H2, H3, etc.)
To make the heading and list appear as one unit, select both widgets, click the Group dropdown, and choose "Group".
Click Save and visit your site to see your featured posts list in action.
While this method is simple, it can be tedious to edit the list each time you want to update your featured posts. Next, we‘ll show an easier way to manage your list.
Method 2: Create a Featured Posts Menu
For this method, you‘ll create a navigation menu of your featured posts and display it in your sidebar. This allows you to manage your featured content more easily.
Here‘s how:
Go to Appearance > Menus and click the "create a new menu" link.
Give your menu a name like "Featured Posts" and click the Create Menu button.
On the left side under Add menu items, click the Posts tab.
Select the posts you want to add to your featured posts menu and click the Add to Menu button.
The selected posts will appear on the right under Menu structure. You can drag and drop to rearrange their order, or click on each one to edit its label.
Once you‘re done, click the Save Menu button.
Now go to Appearance > Widgets and add the Navigation Menu widget to your sidebar.
Under Select Menu, choose the Featured Posts menu you just created.
Give the menu a title if desired, and click Save.
The benefit of this method is that you can edit your featured posts menu under Appearance > Menus at any time without editing the widget each time. The menu is also reusable in other areas like your footer.
Method 3: Use Blocks to Feature Posts in Your Content
What if you want to highlight featured posts inside a page or post instead of your sidebar? You can use WordPress blocks to manually create a featured post list anywhere in your content.
The steps are similar to Method 1, but done in the WordPress editor instead:
Edit the post or page where you want to add your featured posts list.
Click the (+) icon to add a new block and search for the "List" block.
In the List block, add the titles of the posts you want to feature. Highlight each title and click the Link icon in the toolbar to add the post URL.
You can add a Heading block above the List block to introduce your featured posts.
To use this list again in other posts, select the Heading and List blocks, click the 3-dot icon, and choose "Add to Reusable blocks". Give it a name like "Featured Posts".
Now whenever you want to add the featured posts list to a post, simply search for the reusable block you created.
If you want something more visually appealing than a text list, try the next method.
Method 4: Automatically Show Featured Posts With Thumbnails
Our final method uses a plugin to dynamically display featured posts along with thumbnail images. We‘ll use the MonsterInsights plugin, which is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.
The Popular Posts feature is available with the MonsterInsights Pro plan, but you can start with the free version to add Google Analytics to your site.
Once you‘ve installed and activated the plugin, follow these steps:
Go to Insights > Popular Posts in your WordPress dashboard and click the "Popular Posts Widget" tab.
Choose a theme that displays a thumbnail image along with the post title. You‘ll see a live preview as you select different themes.
Customize the styling of the widget including colors and font sizes.
Under Post Count, choose how many posts to display (2-10).
Under Display Options, select which information to include like author name, post date, and comments.
Under Behavior, select the "Curated" option to manually choose the posts to feature.
To add posts, start typing the post title and select it from the dropdown. Add at least as many posts as your Post Count.
Configure any other desired settings. We recommend leaving most as the defaults.
Click Save Changes at the top.
Go to Appearance > Widgets and add the MonsterInsights Popular Posts widget to your sidebar.
Give the widget a title, choose your Theme and Post Count to match your settings.
Click Save.
Your featured posts will now appear in your sidebar with thumbnails, titles, and any other information you configured. MonsterInsights will automatically rotate between the posts you selected in your curated list.
The advantage of this method is that the thumbnail images make your featured posts eye-catching and more clickable. MonsterInsights also offers other display options like an inline featured posts list and a widget that shows your popular posts according to Google Analytics stats.
Tips for Featuring Your Best Content
Whichever method you use to add featured posts to your sidebar, here are some tips to get the most engagement:
- Choose your highest-converting posts that will drive email signups, product sales, or affiliate commissions
- Update your featured posts regularly so returning visitors see fresh content
- Keep your list between 5-10 featured posts so it doesn‘t overwhelm your sidebar
- Use clear, curiosity-inducing titles for your featured posts
- Include a strong call-to-action in the introduction to your featured posts list
- Consider adding featured posts in multiple areas like your sidebar, footer, and inline in your content
By highlighting your best content in your sidebar with these methods, you can guide visitors to your most important articles and pages. This will keep readers on your site longer, make your key content more discoverable, and boost your traffic and revenue.
Give these featured post methods a try and see which one works best for your WordPress site. With a little strategy and experimentation, you can maximize engagement with your best articles.
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