Do you want to add specific posts to your WordPress navigation menu? Menus in WordPress can be fully customized, and you can add custom links, pages, posts, categories and more. In this article, we will show you how to easily add specific posts to WordPress navigation menu.
When and Why Add Specific Posts to Navigation Menu?
Navigation menus allow you to create a navigational structure for your website. This helps users quickly find the most important sections of your website.
WordPress makes it very easy to create and add navigation menus on your website. By default, it shows sections to easily add pages, categories, custom links, and more.
Normally website owners add pages to their navigation menus like about page, a separate blog page, pricing page, or a contact form page.
However, sometimes you may need to add an individual post to your navigation menu. This could be your most popular post or something that you would like your users to find quickly.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add specific posts to WordPress navigation menu.
Adding Specific Posts to WordPress Navigation Menu
First thing you need to do is go to Appearance » Menus page in your WordPress admin area and select a menu to edit. You can also create a new menu and use it as your navigation menu.
After selecting the menu, you’ll see tabs for pages, posts, custom links, and categories. You can click on each tab to expand it.
If you cannot see the Posts tab there, then you need to add it by clicking on the Screen Options button at the top right corner of the screen.
Once the Post box appears, you need to expand it to select the specific posts that you want to add to your navigation menu and click on the Add to Menu button.
After adding the specific posts to the navigation menu, you can drag and drop menu items to adjust their display order.
You can also customize the label to change the post title into a smaller title. Make sure to save it and visit your website to see your WordPress navigation menu with specific posts in action.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add specific posts to WordPress navigation menu. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best tutorials to master WordPress navigation menus to easily customize and manage your blog navigation.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
You may have heard that WordPress is the most popular website builder platform, but maybe you aren’t sure if WordPress is the right choice for you. Unlike Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace, WordPress is actually 100% free. This is why if you searched for “WordPress review”, you would hardly find anything useful because bloggers often tend to write reviews for products that they earn a referral commission from. To help you make the right business decision, we have created the ultimate WordPress software review with pros and cons of using WordPress, so you can decide if WordPress is the right choice for your website.
Because our WordPress review is extremely detailed, we have added a table of contents, so you can jump between different sections.
WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder. It powers more than 31% of all websites on the internet, that’s millions of websites all over the world.
It’s important that you don’t confuse the WordPress.org content management software with the WordPress.com blog hosting service.
Our WordPress review is for the popular self-hosted WordPress software that everyone loves and use (not the WordPress.com hosting service). We recommend WordPress.org because it gives you full access to all WordPress features out of the box. For more details, see our side by side comparison of WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
From now onwards, when we say WordPress, we are talking about the free WordPress.org software.
WordPress started as a simple blogging platform back in 2003. Since then it has evolved to become a content management system and an application development framework. In simple words, you can easily build any type of website using WordPress. To see how WordPress changed over the years, please see our article on the evolution of WordPress user interface.
It is free as an in freedom. You can use it for any purpose, and no one can suspend your website due to censorship or a terms of service violation. You also have the freedom to customize WordPress to your needs without any restriction.
Based on your needs, you may have to purchase premium WordPress themes or extensions that will have additional costs. For a complete cost breakdown, see our article on the real cost of making a WordPress site.
That being said, now let’s take a look at what you can do with WordPress and how does it actually work.
2. What Kind of Websites You Can Make With WordPress?
WordPress is extremely flexible which is the main reason why it is a popular choice to build a website. You can use WordPress to build almost any kind of website imaginable!
No matter what kind of website you want to build, chances are that there is probably an existing WordPress plugin (extension) for that. In case, you don’t find a plugin, you can easily hire from thousands of developer to make it for you.
Unlike other website builders, WordPress keeps design, content, and functionality separated from each other. This allows for data portability.
In other words, you can add content regardless of the design you are using, modify the design without changing your content, and add new features without affecting the other areas.
Let’s dig deeper into that.
1. Adding Content in WordPress
WordPress stores content in a database and media files like images in a separate folder. Mainly you will be adding content to your website using the post editor.
Post editor is a simple WYSIWYG editor with some basic formatting features. It comes in two forms.
First, you have the Visual editor, which is a WYSIWYG style editor, and then you have the Text editor which is a plain text editor where you can add formatting by writing HTML in your content.
By default, WordPress content editor does not have any fancy drag and drop features to customize your content design as you write it. However you can use one of the popular WordPress drag and drop page builders should you need it.
2. Managing Design and Appearance in WordPress
WordPress uses a powerful templating engine to manage the appearance of a website. This templating engine allows developers to create a set of templates called ‘Themes‘. There are thousands of pre-made WordPress themes available in the market.
Each WordPress theme comes with a stylesheet and basic template files to display different sections of a typical WordPress website.
Depending on which theme you are using, it will come with its own settings which you can use to customize the appearance of a website. Some themes may have a lot more options than others.
There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes available that you can use to build a website. These themes allow you to use your own colors, layout combinations, and logos.
You can also hire someone to create a custom WordPress theme from scratch, but it would cost significantly higher than using a free or premium WordPress theme.
Alternatively, you can use a drag and drop page builder like BeaverBuilder or Divi to create a custom theme without hiring a developer.
3. Extending WordPress with Add-ons
WordPress has become a platform for many developers to write their own add-ons for WordPress. These add-ons are called Plugins.
Plugins are like apps for your WordPress site. Just like apps on your mobile phone, you can install WordPress plugins to add new features to your website.
At the time of writing this article, there are more than 55,000 plugins available in WordPress.org plugins directory alone. This means if you can think of a feature for your website, then there is a very good chance that there is already a plugin for that.
Some WordPress plugins are simple and only add a specific feature. Other plugins add a large set of features and functionalities. There are even WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce solution, which have their own ecosystem of WooCommerce plugins and themes. Such plugins are like a platform built on top of the WordPress platform itself.
Just like everything else in the world, WordPress has its own advantages and disadvantages which you may want to consider before making your website.
Pros of Using WordPress
The advantages of using WordPress to build your website deserve an entirely new article (See why you should use WordPress). Here is a summary of pros of using WordPress for your website.
WordPress is free and gives you complete control of your website. You own and control all your website files and data. You are not tied to a web hosting company and can move your website anywhere you want.
It gives you access to a huge collection of extensions, add-ons, and plugins to extend your website. This enormous access to professional applications allow you to make anything you want.
You are in charge of your website, so you can keep it simple and only add new features as your website grows. You can make your website super fast and use all the neat SEO best practices to bring new users.
Super easy to customize with thousands of website designs and templates to choose from. Each of them comes with different customization options, allowing you to create truly unique websites.
WordPress is not perfect. It has some disadvantages that you may want to keep in mind when choosing your platform.
You are in charge of your website. This means you are also responsible for security, making backups, and installing updates. You can automate all these tasks, but they would still require your attention unless you’re using one of these managed WordPress hosting companies.
WordPress does not come with a built-in drag and drop website builder. It takes some time for most beginners to get familiar with it and learn the basics. However you can use one of the popular drag and drop page builder plugins for WordPress.
You do not need to learn coding to use WordPress. However, some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS will make things a lot easier. Most beginners acquire these basic skills as they use WordPress.
5. Who Should Use WordPress? Is WordPress Right For You?
The beautiful part about WordPress is that it adapts to your needs. It can be as easy and simple as you want, or as complex and sophisticated as you need it to be.
Since you are completely in charge and in full ownership, you can make things simple, control the cost, and efficiently run your website.
Over the years, we have helped thousands of beginners learn WordPress, and we have seen them quickly graduate to the intermediate or even advanced level.
Here is a simple checklist to see if WordPress is right for you:
You want to make a professional business website without spending a lot of money
You can easily follow simple tutorials to learn the basics
You want to grow your business online with complete freedom
You want to make a blog, portfolio, or a personal website and use it to make money online
If you agree with any of the above statements, then WordPress is the perfect platform for you to build a website.
Who should not use WordPress?
While we sincerely believe that WordPress is the best platform for anyone who wants to make a website, we understand that some users may not actually need WordPress, and would be fine with another solution.
Here is a simple checklist to see if you don’t need WordPress:
You just want to run a blog and have no plans to make money or use any third-party services.
You are fine with limited features as far as you never have to write code, make backups, or worry about updates.
You just want a small website, and you are not worried about growing your business online or using the website to make more sells.
If you agree with any of these statements, then you can use another platform. See our list of best blogging platforms and website builders to find a platform that may suit your needs.
We also have a quick comparison guide of WordPress vs other popular platforms:
6. How to Get Started with WordPress – The Right Way
To start a self-hosted WordPress.org website, you will need to register a domain name and purchase website hosting.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are offering our readers a FREE domain name + free SSL + 60% discount on WordPress hosting. Which means you can start your website for as low as $2.75 per month.
Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world, and they are an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
Once you have purchased hosting, head over to our guide on how to make a website for step by step instructions.
7. Mastering WordPress Skills
While WordPress is easy to use, you may want to ask a question or need some help every now and again. The good news is that there are plenty of free resources to help you with that.
WPBeginner itself is the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners. Here are our resources that you can use to learn WordPress (all of them are completely free).
WPBeginner Blog – This is where we regularly publish new WordPress tutorials and how-to guides.
WPBeginner Videos – These step by step videos will help you learn WordPress FAST.
WPBeginner on YouTube – Need more video instructions? Subscribe to our YouTube channel with more than 100,000 subscribers and 10 Million+ views.
WPBeginner Dictionary – Familiarize your self with the WordPress lingo and improve your WordPress skills.
WPBeginner Blueprint – Check out plugins, tools, and services we use on WPBeginner.
WPBeginner Deals – Exclusive discounts on WordPress products and services for WPBeginner users.
If you have a WordPress specific question, then you can also reach out to us using our contact form.
Do you want to start a WordPress blog the right way? We know that starting a blog can be a terrifying thought specially when you are not geeky. Guess what – you are not alone. Having helped over 130,000+ users start a blog, we have decided to create the most comprehensive guide on how to start a WordPress blog without any technical knowledge.
There are three things you need to start a WordPress blog:
A domain name idea (this will be the name of your blog i.e wpbeginner.com)
A web hosting account (this is where your website live on the internet)
Your undivided attention for 30 minutes.
Yes, you read it right. You can start a blog from scratch in less than 30 minutes, and we will walk you through the whole process, step by step.
In this tutorial, we will cover:
How to Register a Domain Name for Free
How to Choose the Best Web Hosting
How to Install WordPress
How to Change Your Theme
How to Write Your First Blog Post
How to Customize WordPress with Plugins
How to Add a Contact Form
How to Setup Google Analytics Tracking
How to Optimize Your Website for SEO
How to Make Money From Your Blog
Resources to Learn and Master WordPress
Ready? Let’s get started.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
Step 1. Setup
The biggest mistake beginners make when starting a blog is choosing the wrong blogging platform. Thankfully you’re here, so you won’t be making that mistake.
For 95% of users, it makes more sense to use WordPress.org also known as self-hosted WordPress. Why? Because it is free to use, you can install plugins, customize your site design, and most importantly make money from your site without any restrictions (see the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org).
You might be wondering why is it free? What’s the catch?
There’s no catch. It’s free because you have to do the setup and host it yourself.
In other words, you need a domain name and web hosting.
A domain name is what people type to get to your website. It’s your website’s address on the internet. Think google.com or wpbeginner.com
Web hosting is where your website live. It’s your website’s house on the internet. Every website needs web hosting.
A domain name typically costs $14.99 / year, and web hosting normally costs $7.99 / month.
That’s a lot for beginners who are just starting out.
Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting.
Bluehost is one of the oldest web hosting companies, started in 1996 (that’s before Google). They are also the largest brand name when it comes to WordPress hosting because they host millions of websites including our own.
On top of all this, Bluehost has been working with WordPress since 2005, and they are committed to giving back. That’s why they have promised us that if you cannot get your blog online within 30 minutes by following this tutorial, then our expert team will complete the process for you without any cost. They will compensate us, so you don’t have to. Contact us for free blog setup help.
NOTE: At WPBeginner we believe in transparency. If you sign up with Bluehost using our referral link, we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain). We would get this commission for recommending just about any WordPress hosting company, but we only recommend products that we use personally use and believe will add value to our readers.
Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + hosting.
First thing you need to do is click on the green Get Started Now button to get started.
On the next screen, select the plan that you need (basic and plus are the most popular).
After that, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website.
Lastly, you will need to add your account information and finalize the package info to complete the process. We recommend going with the 36 month plan because that’s best value.
On this screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you purchase these, but we generally don’t recommend purchasing them right away. You can always add them later on, if you decide that you need them.
Once completed, you will receive an email with details on how to login to your web hosting control panel (cPanel). This is where you manage everything from support, emails, among other things. But most importantly, this is where you install WordPress.
Step 2. Install WordPress
In the cPanel, you will see dozens of small icons for different services and features. This can be a bit overwhelming, so ignore 95% of them because you will never need to use them.
Scroll down to the website section and click on the WordPress icon.
You will be redirected to the Bluehost Marketplace Quick Install screen for WordPress. Click on the Get Started button.
On the next screen, you will be asked to select your domain name. Choose the domain from the dropdown and then click Next.
After that, you need to enter your Site Name, username, and a password for your site. You also need to check all the checkboxes and then click Install.
The QuickInstall will start installing WordPress. The marketplace will prompt you to browse WordPress themes, while WordPress is being installed.
No need to do that right now. We’ll show you how to get free WordPress themes in the next step.
Once WordPress is finished installing, you will see the success notice in the top header bar.
Click on the Installation Complete link, and it will take you to the screen with your WordPress login URL and password.
Congratulations, you have created your WordPress site. That wasn’t too bad right.
Click on the WordPress login link to login to your dashboard.
Now we’re ready to customize your site’s appearance and start blogging.
Step 3. Selecting your WordPress Theme
The visual appearance of your WordPress blog is controlled by themes. When you first visit your blog, it will look something like this:
This is not very appealing to most people.
Customizing the look and feel of your blog is by far one of the most exciting and rewarding part in the journey of creating your WordPress site.
There are thousands of pre-made WordPress themes that you can install on your site. Some of them are free, while others are paid.
You can change your theme by going to your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Appearance » Themes.
Go ahead and click on the Add New button.
On the next screen, you will able to search from 5600+ free WordPress themes that are available in the official WordPress.org themes directory. You can sort by popular, latest, featured, as well as other feature filters (i.e industry, layout, etc).
You can take your mouse over to a theme and you will see a Preview button. Clicking on will open the theme preview where you can see how it would look on your website.
The preview of your theme may not look exactly as shown in the screenshot, which is normal as you will get to customize and set it up later. What you need to look for is design, colors, typography, and other elements.
The best tip to select the perfect WordPress theme is to strive for simplicity in design. It helps you keep things clean and clear while offering a good experience to your users.
When you have found the theme that you like, simply bring your mouse on it, and it will show the Install button. Click on it and wait for the theme to be installed. After that, the install button will be replaced with an Activate button. You need to click on it to Activate the theme.
Once you have installed your theme, you can customize it by clicking on the Customize link under the Appearance menu.
Once you have selected your WordPress theme, you are now ready to create your first blog post.
Step 4. Creating Your First Blog Post
To write your first blog post, click on the Posts » Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard.
You will see an editor area where you can write your first blog post.
Once you’re done writing, go ahead and click on the Publish button on the right to publish your first blog post to the world.
On the posts screen, you will notice several other sections such as Categories and Tags. You can use these to organize your blog posts. We have a great writeup on the difference between categories vs tags, which we highly recommend that you read.
Often beginners are confused between posts and pages menu in the WordPress dashboard. That’s why we have written a complete guide on the difference between posts vs pages in WordPress.
Step 5. Plugins & Customizations
Once you have written your first blog post, you probably want to get started with adding other usual elements on your website such as contact forms, galleries, sliders, etc.
To add all these additional features, you need to use plugins.
WordPress plugins are apps that allow you to add new features to your website.
There are over 55,000 WordPress plugins available in the free WordPress plugin directory alone. This means no matter what you want to accomplish, there is a plugin for it.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to use plugins to add some essential features to your WordPress blog.
How to Create a Contact Form in WordPress
Every website needs a contact form. It allows your users to contact you directly. Since WordPress doesn’t come with a built-in contact form, you will need a WordPress form builder plugin to add a contact form on your site.
We recommend using the WPForms Lite plugin. It is free version of the popular WPForms plugin, which is #1 in our list of best contact form plugins for WordPress.
You can install the plugin by going to Plugins » Add New page and typing WPForms in the search box. Next, you need to click “Install” and then “Activate”. Upon activation, you need to head over to WPForms » Add New page to create your first form.
This will open the WPForms builder interface.
First, you need to enter a name for your contact form and then click on ‘Simple Contact Form’ template.
WPForms will now create a simple contact form for you with all the required fields. You can click on any field to change it, or add a new field from the left column.
Once you are done editing the form, click on the save button at the top right corner and then exit the form builder.
You can now create a new page in WordPress by going to Pages » Add New and call it ‘Contact’. On the edit screen, you will notice a new ‘Add Form’ button.
When you click on it, it will bring up a popup where you need to select the form you created earlier and then click on the add form button.
WPForms will now add the form shortcode into your page. You can now save and publish the page and visit it in your browser to see your contact form in action.
Google Analytics helps you see how many people are visiting your blog, where they are coming from, and what are they doing on your website?
It is best to install Google Analytics when starting your blog, so you can see how much your blog has grown over time.
First, you need to visit Google Analytics website and sign in using your Gmail account.
Once you are logged in, you can go ahead and sign up for a free Google Analytics account.
You will be asked to provide your information and website URL. After that, you will be presented with your Google Analytics tracking code.
You can stop here because we will be using a plugin to automatically fetch and add this code to your blog.
Switch to your WordPress admin area to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. It is the free version of the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, and it is the easiest way to add Google Analytics on your site.
Upon activation, you need to visit Insights » Settings page to configure the plugin settings.
On the settings page, click on the ‘Authenticate with your Google account’ button to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site.
Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the setup. Once done, you will be able to see your website analytics report straight from your WordPress dashboard under the MonsterInsights tab.
Most beginners don’t optimize for SEO when creating a blog. SEO or search engine optimization helps users find your blog in search engines. If you want more traffic, then it’s crucial that you optimize your blog for SEO from the beginning.
To get started, first you need to install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. It is the complete WordPress SEO plugin that will help you optimize your blog.
Upon activation, you will see a new menu item labeled ‘SEO’. Clicking on it will take you to the plugins settings page.
The plugin comes with a quick configuration wizard to help you walk through the set up. You can also follow the instructions in our Yoast SEO guide for manual set up.
We also recommend you to follow our complete step by step WordPress SEO guide to set up your blog’s SEO.
More WordPress Plugins and Customizations
There are a ton of others WordPress plugins that you can install. Often beginners find it a bit overwhelming to search for the plugins they need.
At WPBeginner, we often feature the best WordPress plugins to help you add the functionality that you need.
Here is our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins that you should check out.
Security – Sucuri Security is a free security scanner for WordPress. We have a complete step by step WordPress security guide for beginners that will help you secure your blog.
If you are curious about the plugins and tools we use on our site, then check out WPBeginner’s Blueprint. It has all the plugins and tools that we use on the WPBeginner blog.
Now that you’ve built your blog and customized it to your liking, you are probably wondering how can I actually make money from my blog?
There are actually a lot different ways to successfully monetize your blog. However there is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme.
Don’t be fooled by the pictures of expensive cars and mansions because those are all fake.
Unlike other “make money online” articles, we have created the most comprehensive guide on how to make money from your blog using WordPress.
That’s a 4000+ word guide that everyone who starts a blog and wants to make money from it needs to read. We have shared our 14+ years of online wisdom in that ultimate guide.
As long as you’re willing to put in the hard work and effort, you’ll reap the reward. Remember, there are no shortcuts.
Here are some of the best ways to make money from your WordPress blog.
1. Google AdSense
Many bloggers make money by showing ads on their blog. If you make a blog with monetization in mind, then Google AdSense is the best way to do this.
It is the largest advertising platform for bloggers and publishers. Acting as a middleman between you and the advertiser, Google allow advertisers to bid for keywords matching your content. This allows you to get the best rates possible for the ads.
Affiliate marketing is the second most commonly used monetization strategy among bloggers. Basically, you recommend products and services to your readers and when they make a purchase you get a referral commission.
The key in affiliate marketing is to recommend high-quality products and services that you already use and trust. There are plenty of affiliate marketing plugins and tools for WordPress that can help you make more money when promoting affiliate products.
We have a complete step by step affiliate marketing guide for beginners, that will help you get started.
3. Online Store
Many bloggers make money by selling things directly from their blog. This could be physical products, digital downloads like ebooks, artwork, music, and more. Some bloggers even offer consulting services.
That’s not all you can do with your WordPress blog. You can make WordPress blogs specifically for reviews, fashion blogging, food blogging with recipes, and more. Each of these blog types brings you more unique opportunities to make money.
Step 7. Mastering WordPress
WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.
At WPBeginner, our main goal is to provide cutting-edge helpful WordPress tutorials that are easy to understand for small businesses, bloggers, and non-techy WordPress website owners (see more about us).
To expand your WordPress knowledge, you should check out:
WPBeginner Dictionary – The best place for beginners to start and familiarize themselves with the WordPress lingo
WPBeginner Videos – New to WordPress? Watch these 23 videos to master WordPress.
WPBeginner Blog – The central place for all our WordPress tutorials.
You can also subscribe to WPBeginner’s YouTube Channel where we regularly share video tutorials to help you learn WordPress.
Lastly, you can use Google to type your question and add WPBeginner in front of it. Our users find this very helpful because you’ll likely find an answer to any WordPress questions that you have.
In case you don’t find an answer to your question, simply use our contact form to send us a message. We love helping users get started with WordPress.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Having helped thousands of people start a blog, we have answered quite a lot of questions. Below are the answers to the most frequently asked questions about creating a blog.
Can I create a blog without WordPress?
Yes, there are several other blogging platforms available. We have compared them all, and WordPress is by far the best solution in the market to make a blog with complete ownership and freedom.
Can I create a blog without hosting?
No, that’s not possible. Web hosting is where your website files are stored. All websites need web hosting.
If you want to have a public-facing blog but want to remain anonymous, then you need to make sure that your domain has WHOIS privacy turned on. Often people use a pseudonym / nickname to write under. You should also create a unique email just for your blog. It goes without saying, don’t post your pictures or anything on the blog. For more detailed instructions, see our article on how to blog anonymously using WordPress.
Social media plays an important role in bringing new visitors to your website and keeping your followers engaged. WordPress has plenty of great social media plugins that you can use. These plugins allow you to easily add social sharing buttons to your website and engage your audiences across platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
Can I create a blog in my own language?
Yes, you can use WordPress in other languages. You can select your language during installation or from Settings page in WordPress admin area. WordPress is fully translated in more than 56 languages and partially translated into dozens of other languages. Many top WordPress themes and plugins are also available in multiple languages. You can also translate a theme or a plugin that you want to use on your website.
Yes, you can. WordPress comes with a user role management system that you can use to create a multi-author blog.
Can I sell online courses from my WordPress blog?
Yes, you can. WordPress has some of the best LMS plugins to make it happen. You can create a blog and sell courses online from your WordPress blog. For detailed step by step instructions, see our guide on how to create an online course with WordPress.
Can I create a membership based WordPress blog?
Yes, you can. WordPress has some powerful membership plugins, that allow you to easily restrict any content you want and limit it to members only. You can create paid memberships with multiple levels and sell premium content to your paid subscribers. For details, see our ultimate guide to building a WordPress membership website.
Do you want to exclude specific pages, authors, and more from WordPress search? By default, WordPress search includes all posts and pages in the search results. In this article, we will show you how to easily exclude specific pages, posts, authors, categories, and more from WordPress search results.
Why Exclude Items from WordPress Search?
The default WordPress search feature shows results from all WordPress posts, pages, and custom post types. This is acceptable for most websites and does not affect WordPress SEO or performance.
However if you are running an online store, then there are some pages that you may not want to appear in search results. For example, the checkout page, my account page, or a thank you page after successful downloads.
Some website owners may want to hide a category or taxonomy, while others may want to hide posts from specific authors. Optimizing your site-search by excluding unnecessary items offers a better user experience and improves your website’s usability.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily exclude items from WordPress search.
1. Exclude Specific Posts, Pages, and Custom Post Types from Search
Upon activation, edit the post, page, or custom post type that you want to exclude from the search result. On the edit screen, you will see a search exclude box.
Simply check ‘Exclude from Search Results’ checkbox and don’t forget to save your post/page. This particular post/page will not appear in WordPress search results anymore.
To view all the items that you have excluded from search, go to Settings » Search Exclude page. Here you will see a list of items you have excluded from WordPress search results.
If you want to remove the restriction, simply uncheck the box next to the item you want to add back and click on the save changes button.
2. Exclude Specific Category, Tag, Custom Taxonomy From WordPress Search
Don’t forget to replace ‘genre’ with the custom taxonomy and ‘action’ with the term you want to exclude.
3. Exclude Specific Author From WordPress Search
If you want to exclude posts created by a specific author from WordPress search result, then there are two ways to do that.
If the author has just a few posts, and you are sure they will not be adding any more posts, then you can just use the first method in this article to exclude their posts from WordPress search.
However if there are a lot of posts written by an author, then you can use the following code to exclude all of them from WordPress search results.
We hope this article helped you learn how to explude specific pages, authors, and more from WordPress search. You may also want to see our list of the best WordPress search plugins to improve your site search.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
If you’re monetizing your Amazon affiliates site, you’ll be looking for every potential opportunity to increase conversions. As we recently showed, using WooCommerce as the foundation for your affiliate referrals is an excellent start. However, you’ll also want to put some thought into how you display your affiliate products.
Creating individual product reviews is important, especially if your site is an affiliate blog. However, you can also benefit from providing an easy way for readers to compare multiple items within a single blog post. Fortunately, doing this on your WordPress blog is simple. All you’ll need is the right plugin – such as WooCommerce Product Table.
This post will help you make more money from your Amazon affiliates site. We’ll explain why it’s a good idea to create product comparison tables, then show you how to get started. Then, it’s over to you. Let’s go!
Why your Amazon affiliates site needs product comparison tables
Running an affiliate blog takes a lot of work. You have to find products worth promoting, write up reviews, work on building an audience, and much more. That means you’ll be on the lookout for easy-to-use tools and features that can make blogging simpler and more profitable.
One smart strategy is to provide your audience with a built-in way to compare your affiliate products. If you review children’s toys, for example, you can offer a lot of extra value to readers by including handy product comparison tables directly in your blog posts:
Help readers make more informed decisions, which improves your trustworthiness and authority
Show off multiple affiliate products in one place
Can contain affiliate links within the table, encouraging more clicks and conversions
You can write blog posts comparing multiple affiliate products, with comparison tables like the one in this example. You can also include comparison tables at the end of relevant posts about specific products. However you use them, they’re the perfect complement to standard reviews. What’s more, they’re very easy to set up.
We now know the why: product comparison tables are good for your readers, add value to your Amazon affiliates site, and will help you make more money. Let’s now look at how to do this.
How to add a product comparison table to your Amazon affiliates site (in 3 steps)
Now, it’s time to get a little more practical. Let’s walk through the process of creating a product comparison table and including it in one of your blog posts.
For the purposes of this guide, we’re going to assume that you already have an Amazon affiliates site set up. You’ll also need WooCommerce installed – the most popular and feature-rich e-commerce plugin for WordPress sites. With that out of the way, let’s get started!
Step 1: Install and activate the WooCommerce Product Table plugin
It is possible to create an affiliate product comparison table by hand, using code or default formatting options. This is a time-consuming process, however, and the result is likely to be pretty basic unless you’re very technically skilled.
This WordPress add-on lets you create and customize a table of products, and insert it just about anywhere on your site such as within blog posts. You can use it to build order forms, product catalogs, image galleries, and much more. Plus, it’s designed to integrate smoothly with WooCommerce affiliate products.
For our purposes, this plugin dramatically simplifies the process of creating an affiliate product comparison table. We’ll walk you through some of the many options it offers in a moment. First, however, you’ll need to set it up.
Start by purchasing the plugin, and then install it on your WordPress site. After that, there’s only one thing you need to do. Head to WooCommerce > Settings in your dashboard, click on the Products table tab, and then select Product tables near the top of the page:
Here, you’ll need to enter the license key you received when you bought the plugin. Hit Save changes at the bottom of the page, and you’re ready to go!
Step 2: Add your affiliate items as WooCommerce products
Next, make a list of all the items you want to include in your affiliate product comparison table. You can add as few or as many as you’d like. Each one will need to be entered into WooCommerce as a separate ‘product’.
To do this, navigate to Products > Add New in your dashboard. Here, you can enter all the information you want about the first item on your list:
You can start by adding a title and description in the initial two fields. In the right-hand menu, you can also assign categories and tags to the product, and upload a featured photo in the Product image section. If you want, you can add an entire selection of images by selecting Product gallery.
Once you’re done with those basics, you’ll want to scroll down to the Product data section:
Under the Product Type drop-down menu, select External/Affiliate product:
This will change the options in this section, so that only the ones relevant to affiliate products remain. The most important thing to do here is to add the item’s Amazon affiliate link in the Product URL field. You can also include prices if you like. Otherwise, readers can simply click on each referral link to see the costs listed on Amazon.
Once you’re finished customizing your first product, select the Publish button to make it live. Then, repeat this process for every item you want to include in your comparison table. Make sure to add an affiliate link for each one. Then, move on to the last step!
Step 3: Create your Amazon affiliate product comparison table
Now, open up the blog post you want to add a comparison table to (or create a brand new post). Select the Toolbar Toggle icon, and then the Insert Product Table icon in the second row:
This will place a shortcode in your post, which will display a product table. You can move the shortcode around if you like, placing it anywhere you want within your content. If you preview it on the front end, it will look something like this:
Right now, it’s a functional but pretty basic product table. However, it will need a few tweaks to become an effective affiliate comparison tool. So save this post for now, and head back to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Product tables:
Here, you can customize just about every element of your affiliate products table. There are a lot of options here, and you can explore them all in the plugin’s documentation. At the moment, let’s just look at a few crucial settings.
First, take a look at the Columns field:
You need to include an add-to-cart column because this is where people will click on your referral links and earn you a commission! If you selected External/Affiliate product for each product in the previous step, the default Add to Cart buttons will be replaced by Buy product links (or whatever text you entered for each product). These links will direct readers to the correct affiliate URLs using your referral links.
So you’ll want to keep add-to-cart in the list of columns. Other than that, you can include whatever information you’d like. At a minimum, we’d recommending displaying a product image, name, short description, and potentially categories and prices.
If there are a lot of products in your Amazon affiliate comparison table, you may also want to pay attention to the Product variations and Filter dropdowns fields:
These two options let you add extra information to your comparison table. That way, readers know what variations are available for each item, and can sort through the table to find products they want quickly.
Finally, you may want to scroll down to the Show links field, and change all to false:
The change will remove links to the individual product pages for each affiliate item. That way, readers of your blog post have only one choice – to click on the actual affiliate links to find out more. If you want them to be able to read more information on the single product page, that’s fine too – these pages will also include your affiliate links.
Once you finish customizing your table, don’t forget to save your changes. Then, go back to your review post and check it out on the front end once more:
You can continue to tweak your affiliate product comparison table until you’re entirely happy with how it looks and functions. In the end, your readers will thank you for providing such a useful and easy-to-understand feature on your Amazon affiliates site. They’ll be able to compare the products you’re recommend more efficiently, which makes them more likely to make a purchase. Everyone wins!
You’re ready to make more money
Readers who visit your Amazon affiliates site are looking for the best possible product to meet their needs. To help them out, you’ll want to provide an easy way for them to compare similar items and choose the one they want.
As we’ve shown, by using WooCommerce Product Table, it’s easy for you to add significant value to your site, and make more money. The plugin enables you to create a product comparison table, fully customize it, and include links to each affiliate item. Then you can insert that table into your blog posts, to provide extra value for your readers.
Do you have any questions about how to create an effective product comparison table for your Amazon affiliates site? Have you set this up? Any other tips on maximizing commission from Amazon affiliates? Let us know in the comments, and let’s continue the conversation there.
