• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

A Joyfully Mad Kitchen

Easy recipes for building confidence in the kitchen

  • Home
  • About
  • Recipe Index
    • appetizers
    • Desserts
    • Main Course
    • muffins, breads & scones
    • holiday
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Home
  • About
  • Recipe Index
  • Desserts
  • Dinner
  • Breakfast
  • Meals for Sharing
×
Browse More: lifestyle » blogging » How to Create A Visual Popular Posts Page in WordPress

How to Create A Visual Popular Posts Page in WordPress

Published: Apr 18, 2016 · Last Updated: Sep 22, 2016

Have you ever wanted to create a page to display your most popular posts? A popular posts page is a great way to direct your readers to posts that you want them to see. Find out how to create your own visual popular posts page with a simple plugin!

How to create a visual popular posts page with WordPress and the Content Views plugin.

I remember the days where I could sit and scroll through the most recent 20 posts from a new blog I found and liked. These days, when I find a new blog I think seems interesting I look for one thing. A popular posts or “start here” page. Why? Truthfully, I don’t have time to scroll through the last 15 blog posts to find out if I want to follow along. I need the reader’s digest version. That’s exactly why a popular posts page is essential for grabbing new readers.

[Tweet “A visual popular posts page is essential to grabbing new readers! Find out how to make yours.”]

Before I switched over to WordPress, I would have had to create a visual popular posts page with coding instead of being able to use a simple plugin to create it for me. I love that WordPress allows me to have that freedom to create a fancy looking page without having to spend time on any coding.?There are many ways and plugins to create this type of post in WordPress, but my favorite that I use is called Content Views.

If you’re not familiar with installing plugins on WordPress, all you need to do is go to “Plugins” on your left hand sidebar menu when you’re logged into your WordPress Dashboard for your site. From there, you want to select “Add new” and search “Content Views.” Once you find the correct one (author of the plugin is PT Guy), click install now!?

How to Create a Visual Popular Posts Page in WordPress (using Content Views)

Before you begin: the free version of this plugin ONLY works if you’ve selected a “featured image” for your posts. If you have not, you’ll have to add a featured image before your grid will look right!

Now that your plugin is installed, you need to figure out which posts you want to showcase as your popular posts. You can do this by checking which of your posts are most popular with you readers according to Google Analytics?and by deciding which posts you may want to make sure your readers see! These posts might be posts that are monetized, posts that share your story, etc. For now, I recommend making a list (digital or with pen and paper) of the post names you want to include. I recommend 4-12 posts.

Once you have your list, you need to?add them to a view through Content View. Now that the plugin is installed, you’ll see a “Content Views” icon on your dashboard sidebar. Click that icon to open up the content views menu! Click add new to create a new view and get started.

One way you could organize your popular posts is by adding a “popular” category and adding the popular posts on your list to that category. I personally prefer a more manual method of adding popular posts, so that’s how I’m going to explain it to you! First, add a title to your new view. This is a title you’ll want to recognize so you can go back in and edit your view in the future. Simply naming the view “Popular Posts” is sufficient.

Now it’s time to add your posts. To add your posts you need to add the?post ID of each post to the “include only” section.

How to build a visual popular posts page on WordPress with the Content Views plugin.

To find the post ID for your posts, go to your posts tab on your dashboard to open all of your posts. Now, search the title of one of the posts you want to include. Once you’ve pulled it up, click “edit” to open the post editor. The post ID is a part of the URL when you are editing a post. It’s automatically generated from WordPress, so it’s not something you would know without going into the edit section of a post. Here’s where you can find it:

How to find the post ID for a WordPress blog post.

The number may be less than four digits, depending on your site. Copy the number and add it into the view under the “include only” field. You’ll repeat this step for every post you want to include. If you’re displaying more than 10, be sure to change the “limit” to be the same or larger than the amount of posts you’re displaying. Don’t worry if you update the preview and nothing shows up yet, we’ll work on that in the next step!

Now it’s time to style your popular posts page. Go to the “Display Settings” tab within the Content Views settings.

Edit display settings for Content Views plugin to create a visual popular posts page on WordPress.

My settings are the following:?Grid, 4 items per row, 1 column layout, Show Thumbnail and Show Title, Thumbnail size 400×400

You can play with these settings to achieve the look you want! Under you size options, these sizes are dictated by your theme, so you may not have the same that I have. Pick whichever you like best! You can use “show preview” to see what it will look like.

A word of caution, if your featured images are not all the same size and you are not using a hard crop size like a square, your grid may not be spaced equally. This is where trial and error comes in!?

After you have your view set up the way you like it, it’s time to add it to a page. Before you navigate away from your view, copy the code at the top that looks something like this: [ pt_view id=”3242f061ce” ]. ?If you want a separate popular posts page, create a new page and name it “Popular Posts” or whatever title you want. Once you’ve created your page, paste the code directly into the post editor. Just like this:

How to add view from Content Views plugin to popular posts page.

Then just click “publish” and your new popular posts page is live! If it doesn’t look the way you want it to, just go back into your display settings and tweak the settings until it looks right.

how-to-create-a-visual-popular-posts-page-wordpress-content-views-plugin

Now you have a page that you can direct new readers to and you can showcase your best posts! This is a great way to show a snapshot of what readers can expect from your blog.?If you can get a reader to dive more than 2 pages into your blog, they’re much more likely to stick around.

Do you have a visual popular posts page? If you used this tutorial to create yours, comment with the link below so I can see it!

Filed Under: blogging

Looking for more recipes?

Be sure to check out the recipe index where you can browse recipes by meal type and category!

Check Out the Recipe Index

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tayler Morrell says

    April 18, 2016 at 8:32 pm

    This is perfect! Could this also work for just a recipe page rather than a Popular Post page?

    Reply
    • Madison Wetherill says

      May 04, 2016 at 4:15 pm

      Yep! Absolutely. You could use it for anything! I’ve used it for a “see more posts” kind of thing at the bottom of a post, too!

      Reply
  2. Hannah says

    April 18, 2016 at 9:44 pm

    Madison, this is an AWESOME tutorial! I’ve always struggled with figuring out this idea – I really wanted a visual popular posts page so I can’t wait to try this out when I get the chance! Thank you! (Also, do you think this idea would work for my email subscribers’ private “content library” on my blog? My free printables are really adding up and I’d like a good way to organize them.)

    Reply
    • Madison Wetherill says

      May 04, 2016 at 4:16 pm

      It could, the only difficult part is that this pulls from posts/pages, so you’d have to have a page set for each printable, if that makes sense!

      Reply
  3. Jenna @ A Savory Feast says

    April 22, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    My theme has a visual page that I use for recipes. I think that for any food blog it’s a good idea to have something like that so that people can see the yummy recipes as they search through your blog! My popular posts page is just text now but I need to make it visual someday soon!

    Reply
    • Madison Wetherill says

      May 04, 2016 at 4:17 pm

      I know you’ve had issues with this plugin before, but I wonder if maybe you could use the themes set up for the recipe index to create a popular posts page! Then it would look uniform to your theme!

      Reply
  4. Elizabeth Mayberry says

    April 22, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    Yes! That is the one I use and love! Content Views! I love having it for my blog tips!

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Mayberry says

      April 22, 2016 at 6:05 pm

      But I am thinking I could make one for popular posts! That may be fun!!

      Reply
      • Madison Wetherill says

        May 04, 2016 at 4:18 pm

        You definitely could 🙂 Or part of a start here kind of page.

        Reply
  5. Anne Marie says

    April 22, 2016 at 10:08 pm

    THANK YOU!!! I had been wanting to do this! Your instructions were perfect.

    Reply
    • Madison Wetherill says

      May 04, 2016 at 4:21 pm

      Ahh yay! I hope it was easy to follow for you 🙂

      Reply
  6. Susannah Brinkley says

    January 02, 2017 at 3:46 pm

    This is so great! I used it to set up a 2016 Year In Review Post for myself. I’m in love! Thanks so much for sharing this A+ tutorial!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Hey there!

I’m Madison. I’m passionate about helping you find confidence and joy in the kitchen through easy, delicious recipes!

Looking for something?

recently

Orange Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream

All-American Sugar Cookie Bars, the perfect patriotic dessert! Light cookie bars topped with homemade icing and fresh strawberries and blueberries. Celebrate American with this festive dessert! sugar cookie | cookie recipe | sugar cookie bar | cookie bars | july 4th dessert | july 4th recipe | independence day dessert | red white blue dessert | patriotic dessert | fruit dessert | strawberry dessert | blueberry dessert

Berry Sugar Cookie Bars

two chocolate banana smoothies on a wood board

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

Veggie packed pasta salad is a perfect side dish for any occasion. It's great for the warmer weather for potlucks outside and perfect for brightening the colder months, too! The pasta salad is made with a mayo-free dressing and packed with vegetables like cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, corn and topped with feta cheese.?

Easy Pasta Salad without Mayo

LET'S GET CONFIDENT

Subscribe for tips to help you grow more confident in the kitchen!

Footer

follow along

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Privacy Policy

 

top categories

  • holiday recipes
  • desserts
  • Main Course
  • appetizers
  • meals for others
  • breakfast
Copyright © 2022 A Joyfully Mad Kitchen · Designed by Grace + Vine Studios