How to Display Popular Posts in WordPress

Displaying popular posts on your blog is a great way to let your visitors find the best articles on your website. It increases user engagement and also keeps you informed on which content is getting more views. In this article, we’re going to show how to display popular posts in WordPress using multiple methods. You can choose whichever way works for you the best.

You can display popular posts on your home page, archive pages, static pages, sidebar, or even in blog posts. Basically, you should place your popular posts section in a place where it will catch your reader’s eye.

What is a Popular Posts section and why do you need it?

If you’ve been into blogging, then you might already know what the Popular Posts section is. It’s a collection of the most viewed or highly rated posts on a blog. As you keep publishing more and more articles on your blog, it will gain more views. Some posts will have more views than others. These posts with the most views can be defined as your popular posts.

Naturally, you would want your viewers to check out the most popular posts on your blog. Therefore it is a good idea to have a section of your website dedicated to popular posts.

When you have hundreds or thousands of posts on your website, it will be difficult to find your best posts manually. Your readers would also have a hard time finding those posts. So you would want everyone to find your best posts in a single section of your website. Or you can place your popular posts on multiple pages of your websites.

Ways to display popular posts in WordPress

If you are looking to display your popular posts, then there are various ways of accomplishing this task. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can display popular posts on your blog or website:

• On a page using a block
• On the sidebar using a block or a widget
• On the sidebar or section that comes with a theme

You can use a Gutenberg block to display your popular posts. Again, some themes have widgets, and using these widgets you can display your popular posts. You can also use a Gutenberg block and display your posts on the sidebar. Some themes come with a popular posts section by default. This is the easiest way of displaying popular posts since you don’t have to do anything else. Just install and setup that theme and you’re good to go.

But what if your theme doesn’t have a system to display popular posts? No worries, we’ve got your back. You can still show the popular posts using a plugin. We’ll show this using PostX – a Gutenberg block plugin.

How to display popular posts using a Gutenberg block

First we are going to see how you can display Popular Posts on your WordPress website using the PostX plugin.  PostX is a Gutenberg block plugin that gives you a wide variety of options to display your posts beautifully. It also gives you tons of different starter packs and block patterns. 

To install PostX, you can go to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New, and search for PostX. The plugin has been developed by WPXPO and has 20,000+ active installations.

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Follow the below steps to display your Popular Posts using the free version of PostX:

Step 1: Edit page and select a starter pack or a premade pattern

The process of displaying Popular posts using PostX is very easy. First, “edit” the page where you’d want to display your Popular posts. Then open up your PostX Library and select a block or pattern. 

You can also use a starter pack. The advantage of using a starter pack is that it might already have a popular posts section. So if you are interested, look at the live preview of a starter pack and see if it has a popular posts section, if it does, simply click on the import button to import it to your homepage.

Even if your starter pack doesn’t have a popular posts section, you can customize a block displaying a certain post collection to show the popular posts instead.

Step 2: Choose/insert the target block and customize it

Now, select a block which is showing a collection of posts. Then from the block’s settings option, select ‘Specific Posts’ and it will create a new input field called ‘Choose Specific Posts’. Now choose your desired Popular Posts by clicking on the drop down arrow and selecting the posts you want to display. Those selected posts will be displayed in this section.

This is a manual process of displaying your Popular Posts in WordPress using the free version of PostX. So you have to handpick your popular posts and then include them in your Popular Posts section. Using this method you can also display your Featured Posts. You can also display your related posts as well.

However, this method requires a lot of manual work as you have to check every day which are the most viewed posts, then update your list. You can also use other WordPress popular posts plugins but PostX gives you more customizability.

Note: You can also manually make your block pattern using PostX post grid/post list blocks and block settings. But using a predesigned layout will reduce your workload.

⭐️ Best way: Auto display popular posts with dynamic updates ⭐️

Using the previous method, you can use the free version of PostX to display popular posts in WordPress. Then again, if you do that, you have to always check your blog to see which posts have more views. Then you have to manually update your popular posts section over and over again. You’ll need to update the popular posts section daily.

This entire process can be eliminated if you use PostX Pro. Using the advanced query feature of PostX Pro, your posts will be dynamically checked for views and your popular posts list will be updated automatically.

Again, PostX Pro gives you enhanced customization options and a wide variety of premade blocks and starter packs. For this reason, we recommend using PostX Pro. It will reduce a lot of manual labor and automate the whole process.

Installing PostX Pro

To install and work with PostX Pro, we first need to install the free version of PostX. We’ve already shown the free version installation.

After you install the free version you need to purchase PostX Pro from the official website.

Purchasing PostX Pro

To purchase PostX Pro head over to WPXPO’s official website. You must create an account before you can make any purchase. So after creating an account, choose a plan and it will be added to your Downloads section.

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There are 2 main plans for PostX Pro, Yearly and Lifetime. There are 3 plans for Yearly and Lifetime. You can pick any plan that you like. The Yearly plan has the following packages:

• 1 Site Licence – $49
• Unlimited Sites License – $99
• 5 Sites License $79

No matter which package you choose, you’ll have all the pro add-ons available for use. WPXPO offers amazing discounts from time to time. Currently, there’s a 20% discount for the 1 site license package, a 25% discount for the unlimited sites license package, and a 15% discount for the 5 sites license.

After you purchase a PostX pro plan, it will be added to your profile’s downloads section. From there, download the PostX Pro installer zip file.

Installing PostX Pro

Now that you’ve installed the free version of PostX and you also have downloaded PostX Pro, it’s time to install PostX Pro on your website. From your WordPress dashboard go to Plugins > Add New then click on the Choose File button.

Now locate and select your PostX Pro compressed file that you downloaded. After you choose the file, click on the Install Now button and wait for the plugin to be installed. After the plugin is installed, click on the Activate button to activate the PostX pro plugin.

Adding the License key of PostX Pro

After installing and activating PostX Pro, there’s one more thing that’s left and that is adding the license key to your product. Since you’ve purchased a premium product, it’s only natural that you’d want your product to be updated to the latest version. If you activate your PostX Pro with a valid license, your PostX will be updated to the latest version and you will receive the best and latest features.

To get your license key, head on over to your WPXPO account and click on “My Account” button on the top right corner of the screen and select “My Order”.

Then click on the “View Licence” option and copy the key of your product’s license. Now head back to your WordPress dashboard and go to PostX > License and then paste in your license key. Save it. That’s it! Your PostX Pro license has been activated.

How to automatically display Popular Posts using PostX Pro

Now that you’re geared up, you can automatically display Popular posts in WordPress. Thanks to the Pro version, you can do this by accessing the Quick Query option of PostX Pro. Since you have PostX Pro so you can access this option. You can use a starter pack or use any PostX post block. Just customize and set the option to display the Popular Posts. Let’s see how you can do that:

Displaying Popular Posts using a starter pack

PostX gives you access to the PostX Library which consists of various starter packs and post blocks. If you are in the process of designing your home page, you can select a starter pack from the PostX Library and customize it in various ways. There are various sections in a starter pack that you can customize to display the Popular Posts. Let’s see how you can do that:

Step 1: Create or Edit Home Page

The first thing that you have to do is either create or edit your home page. If you have a static home page then access the home page and click on the Edit button from top to bring up PostX options. If you want to create a home page then from your WordPress dashboard, go to Pages > Add New then name your page ‘Home’.

Then click on Publish and confirm to publish your home page. Then go back to your WordPress dashboard and go to Settings > Reading and from the “Your homepage displays” settings select the A static page option. Then from the Homepage dropdown menu, select Home (the page you just created). 

Now the page you just created has been selected as home page. To save everything, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Step 2: Open PostX Library and choose a starter pack

Now open your home page in editing mode and then click on the “PostX Library” button on the top bar to open the PostX Library. 

From the starter pack tab, you’ll find numerous ready to use designs that you can import with one click. You can preview a starter site just by clicking on the button that says “Live Preview”. There are many pre-made templates here. Choose the one you like. If you want your Popular Posts in a sidebar, then it would be a good idea to select a starter template with a sidebar. You can then customize the sidebar to display Popular posts.

Click on the import button to import the starter site you like.

Step 3: Select your desired block and use Advanced Query to display popular posts

After importing your starter site, find a sidebar or a section where you want to display your Popular Posts. Then on the right side, find Query > Quick Query then from the advanced query select the type of popular query you want to display.

Also, remember to change the heading to “Popular Posts”. For example, the sidebar we selected had the heading “Hot Topics”. Just select the block and change it to Popular Posts (to clarify what’s the section about).

Displaying Popular Posts using a post block

You can also use the same method on any post block. You just have to pick a PostX pattern from the library. Then select the block or pattern, then like before from advanced query select the Popular Posts type that you like.

Step 1: Select a pattern from PostX Library

First, access your PostX Library like before and select the Premade patterns tab. From here, select the pattern or block that suits your needs. We’ve selected Post Grid #1 – Style 13.

Although this is not a sidebar, it’s a great way to show your popular posts. This grid style views 3 posts per row. You can also customize how many posts you want to display from the settings option on the right side.

Step 2: From the advanced query select your Popular Post display type

Now like before, select this block or pattern, and a settings option will show up on the right side of the screen. Go to Query > Quick Query. Then from the advanced query dropdown option, select the popular post type you want to display.

And that is how you can display popular posts using any PostX pattern or block. You can customize other options such as how many posts will be displayed per row, the alignment of the posts, the row gap, the content gap, etc. from the settings option. Tweak these general settings to display your Popular Posts the way you want.

Benefits of displaying Popular Posts

You might already know that displaying Popular Posts on a sidebar or homepage is a great way of allowing your readers to check out your best posts. Besides, it also has some SEO benefits as well. Let’s take a minute and see what are the benefits of displaying Popular Posts on your website.

Increase user engagement

Since you’ve included your popular posts on your website, your visitors can now access your best posts right from your sidebar or any section you’ve decided to display your popular posts on. Your new visitors can now read all your best posts from your popular post section.

Since more people are interacting on your website, this increases your user engagement. This also increases your SEO score and ensures that more people will find your website on search results.

Decrease bounce rate

Bounce rate is the rate at which your visitors arrive at your website, then leave within a few seconds because they lose interest. One of the biggest issues with websites today is that it fails to attract users’ attention. That is why a user leaves or “bounces off” your website. It is said that if a user arrives at a webpage and leaves within 30 seconds, that means he/she isn’t interested. This means, that if you can’t grasp a user’s attention within 30 seconds, he/she will leave your website.

There are a number of ways through which you can grasp a user’s attention, such as having a good web design, having informative posts, etc. However, it has been proven that adding a Popular Posts section to your website is also a great way to attract users. Since you are displaying your most popular posts, there will be a higher chance that your visitors will find those posts useful. Thus, reducing your bounce rate.

Increased average time on the website

Since your bounce rate is decreasing, that means the average time will also increase. Your visitors will most likely spend more time on your website browsing your popular posts as these posts are the most engaging.

As visitors spend more time on your website, your average time increases which improves your SEO score.

Regular readers

While having a high rank on Google or other search engines helps you reach a broader audience, you can’t depend on higher search ranks forever. There might be new blogs or resources that provide better content. Very soon your blog or website might lose its position on search results and you might lose visitors. For this reason, if you have regular visitors or readers, you can have a good ranking on SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

Therefore, if you stop providing something new and exciting to your visitors on your homepage, your visitors might lose interest and may not visit anymore. So if you show your Popular Posts on your homepage, it will increase user engagement and will give your readers a chance to read the best articles. Also if you have the PostX Pro, you can use the Advanced Query to show the number of views of a post dynamically. You don’t have to do anything manually.

You can also include a subscription function to your website so that whenever a new post is published, your readers will be notified. This will ensure a regular stream of readers on your website.

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Conclusion

So that is how you can display popular posts in WordPress using the PostX plugin. There are a number of benefits of displaying Popular Posts on your website and we’ve discussed some of these benefits. Now you know how to display your popular posts using the PostX Pro plugin too. I’ve also shown you a method of displaying popular posts using the free version of PostX but that requires a lot of manual work. Also, when your website grows, it will be difficult for you to keep track of which posts are getting more views, and then updating the section manually. It will become a hectic task. 

For this reason, we recommend purchasing the PostX Pro plugin. It dynamically collects the data of which posts are getting more views and then automatically includes those posts in your popular posts section.

Do you have a popular posts section on your website? Have you gained any benefit from displaying your popular posts on your homepage? Let us know in the comments section.