Under the Post

One of the benefits of having so many blogs is we can experiment across a statistically relevant number of blogs and visitors to test out how different changes to aspects of the blog works.

For example the way we display titles on permalink pages, with the post name first and the blog name second, is the result of testing and we found that having the post name first has an impact on blog traffic, mostly from places like search engines that show the page title as part of the results.

Anyway, one of the places we think is pretty under-used on our themes is the spot under the post and above the comments. It makes sense, when someone is done with your post they’re probably looking for someplace else to go. We were brainstorming some ideas of what to put there, here’s what we have so far:

  • Related posts
  • Ads (your ads)
  • Blogroll or avatars
  • Popular posts
  • Random same-blog posts
  • Author profile

Of those, “related posts” is the most exciting but also the most difficult, but probably the one we’ll try to tackle first.

However I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff we haven’t even imagined yet. So… what would you be interested in having under your post on the permalink (single post) page?


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257 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. Uncle Su

    I want RSS feeds (customizable)!

    I kind of like the Ads idea, its about time we have that up!

    Like

  2. Austin

    related posts and popular posts would be nice to see

    Like

  3. ismangil

    In order of preference:
    1. Related post
    2. Ads/affiliate links

    Like

  4. mudin001

    the first two: Related posts and Ads!

    Like

  5. Abel Muiño

    There are some themes (or at least one, PressRow) that do not even display the name of the author. Shouldn’t that be tackled before?

    Like

  6. EscRiBiTioNiSt*

    Hope you do not mind I leaving my comments here. I like sharing thoughts about this. Hehe..

    * Related posts :- This also sounds interesting. However, how ‘related’ of the ‘Related Posts?’ Same tags?
    * Ads :- If there will have to be any ads, I would request that to be at the bottom of the whole page.
    * Blogroll or avatars :- Not sure what this is about.
    * Popular posts :- I think you have offered this on our Dashboard page.
    * Random same-blog posts :- This duplicates what you have on the top of the page.
    * Author profile :- If this will be linked to our WP profile page, I personally do not think we have put much information there.

    Hmm.. how about.. showing the link to the page/ blog in WP that the author of the page has just recently visited? This may link to the same interests, I guess.

    ..

    Really like the way WP think OUT LOUD though we know you guys are working really hard on improve this lovely place 🙂

    Thanks to the WP team!

    Like

  7. Amit

    yeah, having “related posts” below a post would be quite good feature to have! I’ll vote for it above all other listed options! 🙂

    Like

  8. Editor

    Ads yes!?

    Like

  9. David W. Boles

    I vote for “Related Posts” with a 25 word preview for each related post.

    I hope whatever you choose we can choose to turn it on and off on our end.

    Like

  10. Premalatha

    related post under same label?

    Like

  11. Righteously Insane™

    I’d go with related posts. Adding those manually were a pain. It would be awesome if you had a dropdown menu when you write a post where you can filter your posts by category and then select the particular post(s) you want to put.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Jonathan Deamer

    Even if the “related posts” feature only allowed us to enter such posts manually, it’d still be great.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Sienna Wildfield

    Related posts is brilliant. I’ve actually added a couple to the end of a few of my posts. Great minds think alike!

    It would be good if I had the option to just click on a box or boxes as an editing feature, allowing me to choose which of my posts to include as a related post for that particular one.

    Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

    Thanks!

    Liked by 1 person

  14. howard53545

    Sounds good, lets try it.

    Like

  15. Rade

    Related same-blog posts would be great =)

    Like

  16. guiman

    related posts would be perfect… or ads 🙂

    Like

  17. Javyer

    Mmmn… I would like Related posts or Ads.

    I think that “related posts” is very useful for the visitors and readers because they can see related posts.

    Also I believe that the announcements can attract many users of other platforms.

    “Random same-blog posts” would be very well in the Sidebar.

    Pardon my terrible English.

    Greetings.

    —-

    A mí me gustaría Related Post o Ads (Con ADS os referís a anuncios ¿no? En el texto en inglés he dado por hecho que sí, espero no haberme equivocado)

    Yo creo que Related Post es muy útil para los visitantes y lectores porque pueden ver posts relacionados con el que están leyendo y así se aumenta la estancia y lectura en el blog.

    También creo que los Ads (si es que son anuncios) pueden atraer a muchos usuarios de otras plataformas en las que sí se permiten Ads y no quieren pagar servidores y quieren usar WordPress.

    Random same-blog posts estaría muy bien en la barra lateral.

    Un saludo ^.^

    Liked by 1 person

  18. K

    Did you say ads? [:O]

    1.) Related posts would be great
    2.) Random Posts

    Popular Posts, we have a widget, so what’s the need again?

    Like

  19. disembedded

    Not Ads.

    Like

  20. skykid

    Just do not put ads please .Other than that I will appreciate some better tagging function and the option for related posts.

    Like

  21. photoallan

    Firstly, this is a very well timed user-survey.

    I do believe that “related posts” would be of very much importance at that respective slot. Moreover, it gives the visitor an overview of what the Blogger has to say on related aspects of the same subject. This in turn keeps the online audience longer on a said web blog.

    The second Option would certainly be Ads. Those which are related to the subject of the post. But since WordPress doesn’t allow Google Adsense, I wonder how can one go about doing this?

    Blogroll or avatars – There’s no suitable place for this section, than the sidebar itself.

    Popular posts – Again, most would like this at the Sidebar. But its a good option to place them below the comments in this format Post> Related Posts> Comments> Popular Posts.

    Random same-blog posts – Nah! This is mainly for a visitor whose looking for pass his/her time. But, you never know, one may come across a very interesting random post. But, I don’t think this shoul be placed before the comments.

    Author profile – Yes! But who has a genuine Author Profile, if any?

    I hope my suggestions helps in improving this wonderful Blogging platform called WordPress.

    Like

  22. elvenbyte

    I think of popular posts, because statistic reasons, perhaps…

    Like

  23. harshaonline

    cooool

    Like

  24. ramoody5

    your pages or your other blogs, I think it will in crease the traffic to your other posts also,

    I have tried and put my other blogs link in sidebar and it increased the traffic to the other blogs in a rate of 40% of the visitors,
    so what about if we put it under the post?????

    plz reply for your opinion

    Like

  25. Paradox

    What about a sort of reader control box, with options to e-mail the post, subscribe to feed, view the author’s profile and read related posts? This might give the reader a feeling of greater interaction with the blog. Another possibility would be customizable text that bloggers could use as a signature, or even a ‘thank you for reading’ message.

    I just think it’s cool that you all are this involved in figuring out better uses of space – I hadn’t noticed the post title text on permalink pages until reading about it here, but I think that’s a great idea (and it looks more logical, too)!

    Like

  26. E@zyVG

    Related Posts idea is really good one.

    I guess Ads will be only provided to paid members of wordpress.com …. if not, now that will be greatly appreciated. 🙂

    Like

  27. Kunal

    the last four ideas are mediocre at best. these things have been in taken care of already in the side bar and the about-page (if you say most people rarely use about-page, then they are not serious bloggers. all serious bloggers have a proper about-page) .. and avatars would increase the page loading time.

    Ads is a nice idea.

    The best idea seems to be Related-Post, but if you just update the category hyper-link and point to the same blogs’ posts rather then all wordpress posts of the same category, it would be better. if I am generally seeing the photographs taken by one blogger, I would not like to be taken on all photographs on wordpress when I click on the category link below the post title.

    another idea could be add a widget that says “Add this page to”, and you can provide various sites like delicious, furl, reddit …

    Like

  28. juacko

    I like the idea. My preference order would be:
    1. Related posts
    2. Popular posts
    3. Random same-blog posts
    4. Author profile

    I’m, personaly, not interested about the other possible options.

    Thanks for your amazing work!. WordPress.com is day by day the best place for bloggin’.

    Like

  29. afokkema

    The related posts thing is the one i’am waiting for 😉

    Like

  30. Paradox

    P.S. I nearly forgot: if you turn these things into ‘permalink widgets’, you not only create a new class of widget, you leave open the option to turn all of the ideas you mention above into eventual widgets 🙂

    Like

  31. Pingback: Wordpress.com goes Kommerz? | Bloganbieter.de Blog
  32. Chittaranjan

    *puts on thinking cap*
    1. Links to put the post on 3rd party sites such as Digg,Reddit,Technorati,Furl etc
    2. Author’s Mood/currently-listening-to etc
    3. Something on the lines of “4 people have linked to this post” or “7 people found this comment useful”

    I’m sure people will come up with tons of other nifty ideas. Choose the best and emanwhile, we’ll be waiting with crossed fingers to see what gets ‘under our posts’

    Ciao

    Like

  33. MadMark

    “Related Post” containing other blog’s posts.

    Post Statistics – Click / visits for that post

    Like

  34. Ari

    number of unique hits to the article/ post so far?

    Like

  35. iMuslim

    I like the idea of related posts… perhaps it can be done more easily by listing the most recent entries have been labeled with the same category? So, for example, if someone has labeled the current post as “Politics”, then the widget can display 3 of the latest posts on Politics. In addition, you can have another widget that displays links to posts from around WordPress that have the same tag, if the author so wishes. I imagine that might be one way to do it?

    The only difficulty is with authors who are a bit ‘tag-happy’… so maybe you could incorporate some kind of selection system on the post page, where the author can select which (if any) of the tags they wish to have related links displayed (bad grammar?).

    I hope that made sense!

    Like

  36. Ergo

    I would totally vote for “Related Posts” cuz often I find myself physically typing out instructions to my readers to visit related posts on the topic. Perhaps, popular posts might be a good bet too.

    But whatever you guys try out and come with, it will be greatly appreciated. Love you fellas at WordPress! 🙂

    Like

  37. કુણાલ

    related posts + profile( i think profile page also needs some more stuff)

    Like

  38. donal

    Related posts would be nice alright, especially if we can modify the related posts and not rely completely on the ingenuity of WordPress!

    Like

  39. La spectatrice

    Related posts, definitely!
    Thanks in advance. 😉

    Like

  40. Алексей Носаченко

    Sure ‘related posts’ is great idea. But the others of your list is not so attractive. Because one can get them by widgets. Except ads, I think.
    I thought out and the bottom line is:
    1. Related posts
    2. Post stats (hits or graph)
    3. Posts with the same tags

    Nevertheless you do a good job. Thx.

    Like

  41. SebKom

    What about rating?

    And, wouldn’t it be cool if the “related posts” aren’t limited to our own blog posts?

    Like

  42. dario

    yes!!!

    Like

  43. farlane

    Big spammy ads … no wait … bad idea.

    I love the related posts plugin and it would be even cooler if you had one that somehow fused related, popular and random – a customizeable widget??

    Like

  44. Molli Fire

    I’d love a related posts spot there. I’ve been inventing my own things to put in that spot, and so far my favorite is similar to a related posts button. You can check it out at http://hearingtest.wordpress.com

    It would be most useful to be able to put links to different bookmarking sites along the bottom, just as text. For things like seedvine, delicious, reddit etc..

    It would also be super if we could put technorati tags in the metadata instead of the post itself.

    You guys rock for thinking of that spot! That’s been my most troublesome spot.

    Like

  45. vidadeniki

    I definitely would have “related posts” and if you make it possible I’ll try it right away. Thanks for your great work.

    Like

  46. Ryan Deschamps

    “tag this post” icons (delicious etc.) might be nice.

    Like

  47. Holger

    Definately a related post field

    Like

  48. Catshade

    Related posts from same categories or with similar keywords sounds good enough. I’m not sure about ads, tho…

    Like

  49. nextquant

    ‘Related posts’ sounds really good!

    Links to the RSS Feeds and Social Bookmarks (‘Share This’) would be fine also.

    Like

  50. Ankur

    Related Posts is a gr8 idea but are u really serious about those Ads things
    i mean on wordpress.com hosted blogs

    Like

  51. peterhgregory

    All of these are good ideas:
    * Related posts
    * Ads
    * Blogroll or avatars
    * Popular posts
    * Random same-blog posts
    * Author profile
    Why not give us the option of doing any of the above, or none at all!

    Peter

    Like

  52. JamieSW

    To be honest, I think you’ve nailed it with the “related posts” idea. That would be excellent – I can’t think of a better use of the space.

    Like

  53. takpesar

    this is so good: Related posts!

    Like

  54. jerjer

    Ads of our own choice, of course it will be great if we can earn part of the revenue… 🙂

    Like

  55. enblanco

    In order of preference:
    1) Related posts
    2) Random same-blog posts
    3) The rest..

    Like

  56. planetultramarathon

    I like the idea of related posts.

    Phil

    Like

  57. Kevin

    Related posts.

    Like

  58. carthik

    Why don’t yo make these kind of posts a poll, instead of just inviting comments? 🙂

    Like

  59. wunderskatz

    Related posts, definitely.

    Like

  60. Fire Fly

    Couldn’t you extend the tags feature to cover related posts?

    What would be in the author profile?

    Like

  61. Guy

    This may be more related to comments, but maybe there could be some little comment buttons. Kinda like they have on Yelp’s compliments. So if people want to let you know your post is funny or useful or whatever and they dont feel like leaving a full comment they can just click a little button.

    Also some kind of author profile/signature would be cool!

    Like

  62. P. A. Monteiro

    I would go with related posts because I normally look there to see if there’s anything else useful to read. My second choice would be popular posts.

    Like

  63. Jason

    I would definitely be interested in having the author’s name show up on all posts, whether on the main blog page, or on the single post page. Many blogs are collaborative, and it would be helpful to know at a glance who is writing.

    Like

  64. Stephen Elliot

    Anything but ads! Heavens no… Whatever it is, I would like to be able to control it –whether it appears globally or for individual posts.

    Like

  65. Amanna

    You could display some number of the most recent posts in the same category. Or, allow us to “relate” post categories to one another and then display those related categories/posts.

    You could use contextual filtering to “decide” which posts are related to this particular one and display them.

    Like

  66. Cliff

    How about personalization? I’d love for WordPress to open up more features for personalization. I’d love to personalize the text right above the comment box to something different than “Leave a comment”.

    Like

  67. Brenda

    Related post links under the post = FAB idea and most important. We already do this manually. Some method to assist selecting from a list would be a time-saver.

    Like

  68. Christy Tucker

    Related posts would definitely be my first choice. My next choice would be popular posts, then a random post from my blog. I think that’s the most useful order for my readers: similar to what they already ready, then what other people have found useful, then random posts. I’m not sure I’d even use the random post feature, personally, since statistically it would likely end up to be a post with just annotated links on my blog. I can see that it would be fun for discovery on other blogs though.

    Like

  69. piratenblog

    i have a “addthis.com” bar under my posts, but it does not realy belong to the post i think so it would be nice if it was part of the page.

    (i hope you do understand what i am talking about 😉

    Like

  70. snowjunkie

    Related posts would be good.

    Like

  71. marcomkc

    # Related posts
    # Ads

    Like

  72. Jayleigh

    I have to agree with related posts. That’s such a cool idea. Rock on WP!!!!

    Like

  73. 0xcafe

    RELATED POSTS !!!! ALL THE WAY ! 😛
    Popular posts comes in second and lastly random same-blog posts

    Like

  74. Dr. CaSo

    links that would go to the previous and next single post pages on our blog (instead of having to go back to the full page and select individual posts).

    Like

  75. ellaella

    Hi, Matt…”related posts” would be my first choice. I do a lot of internal linking, when appropriate, and it would look so polished to have it standardized.

    Like

  76. StevieB

    Related Posts would be my first choice, though some kind of interaction on the bloggers part would be essential for this to work, perhaps for a start avoiding too many posts as “Uncategorized”. 😉
    I think that ‘Popular Posts’ would work well too.

    Like

  77. Coconuts

    Related posts would be killer, and something that I’ve seen a lot of people (on and off WordPress.com) doing, probably manually. From a sheer-geekiness perspective, I’m also curious if there’s a good way of finding related posts automatically.

    Like

  78. Brandon

    Related posts is number one on my wishlist, followed by popular posts (of all time, not just the past 24 hours). Thanks!

    Like

  79. inadvertentgardener

    I really like the idea of related posts — the popular posts can be handled with the sidebar widget, so that’s less interesting to me. But related posts would be great. That would be my vote for most useful and interesting option.

    Author profile, again, is something that can be handled pretty well with Pages…not sure that’s necessary. And I, for one, would not put a blogroll or avatars between my post and the comments — I think that would break things up for the reader.

    Ads, though, is an interesting possibility. Subtle ads. Pretty ads. Ads that don’t move or jump or spin. But ads, nonetheless. I’d be interested in that.

    Like

  80. eoinpurcell

    My vote is related same blog (or blogroll posts)
    Eoin

    Like

  81. masterclasslady

    I love the “related posts” idea very much. Also, author profile is an excellent idea with contact info.

    Like

  82. Kambiz Kamrani

    I would love to have the related posts feature above all the other ones you mentioned!

    Like

  83. administrator

    Related posts

    Like

  84. arshat chaudhary

    Am I the first to comment *drum rolls*

    Like

  85. arshat chaudhary

    On a serious note, I feel this can have amazing implications…

    Like

  86. arkhitekton

    Hi Matt,

    A “share this” row of linked icons or other method to enable sharing posts with others easily via social bookmarking sites, such as del.icio.us and StumbleUpon, would be fantastic.

    Currently, I have to manually input the permalink URL and post title to get this to work on WordPress.com – far too time consuming!

    Like

  87. Joe Kulangara

    Related posts is a good idea. It would be awesome if you could put in the avatar too. It would pesonalise the post a lot more by my reckoning.

    I can imagine it’s be quite hard for you to put the Related posts, but then again, y’all are doping a fine job so far. Loving every moment on wordpress. keep up the excellent work.

    Like

  88. stupidtom

    I love the related posts idea. Anything that makes WordPress pull ahead of the other platforms.

    Like

  89. adam

    i’d rather see related posts as a widget.

    related posts under the post always looks spammy.

    perhaps you could just make a special widget space under the post? one that’s always styled as display: inline; ?

    Like

  90. Manas

    Related Post! Of course!

    Like

  91. Lee

    Other posts in the same category
    or
    Author profile
    or Popular posts

    Even better if user could choose which he wanted… 🙂

    Like

  92. empressmaruja

    Ads are a cool idea, but I hope that:

    1) They don’t come with sound.
    2) They don’t come in indecipherable languages if I post something in Tagalog.

    Anyway, all the best in further developing WordPress into the hotness that it is now.

    Like

  93. antonis

    Maybe the ability to add some “social networking” buttons (digg etc).

    Like

  94. photographerno1

    I Talk News has a related thread after you post a link or a story a great feature..it becomes a part of your subject that you have written on.

    Like

  95. arsenalist

    Ads is a great idea as long as it’s up to the blogger what ads go there (Google Analytics anyone?)

    Like

  96. Music Snob

    “Related posts” would be GREAT!!!

    Like

  97. agcblog

    I would like to have popular posts, related things and ads
    Or maybe a place were to upload a banner with our own ad about some other web 2.0 project…

    Like

  98. drj11

    Yours are all good suggestions, and as you say, “related posts” is the most interesting of those.

    You could do something based on referrer. If lots of people are visiting from slashdot, or reddit, you could say “Welcome to visitors from slashdot/reddit, etc”.

    On a similar theme you could give some indication of how popular the post is at the moment.

    Like

  99. Craig

    I like the “related posts.”
    How about showing the related posts that are under the same tags/categories?
    I guess it won’t be too difficult (sorry, I don’t know programming) to make that since it’s like clicking on the tag list or tag cloud.

    No ads please!

    As to the permalink, I wonder whether it’s possible that after clicking the permalink, a copied permalink will pop out below without reloading or linking to a new page, like how FlicXX offers a photo’s URL on the page of available sizes. Or maybe, just show the URL below, no more poping out.

    Thanks a lot!

    Like

  100. pada2009

    Thanks very much 4 evey special thing that u have been doing 4 me,i will be glard with every kind of post u have been giving to me thanks 4 ur co-operation.

    Like

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