April 2016 App of the Month: Related Blog Posts April 26, 2016 19:00
Blogs are becoming an essential part of eCommerce stores. Shopify store owners can use blogs to provide industry or product information, give product tips, showcase user-generated content, provide customer service, and more. Blogs are versatile in how they can be used. But, as your post library gets bigger and bigger, it can become hard for customers to find older posts that are relevant to their interest. This is where the free Related Blog Posts comes in.
In this post, we will go over how related blog posts can help enhance your blog, and how to install and customize the app.
Related Blog Posts: Why add related posts
First, let’s look at how adding a related posts section to articles can improve your blog and your store.
Engagement
Related posts can improve engagement on your blog as readers are more likely to see other articles that are relevant. If you add the related posts section to the end of an article, you almost build a map to where readers can click next to find other useful information. In this way, your readers are more engaged with your blog instead of leaving after reading one article.
Search engine optimization
Related posts automatically adds links to other relevant posts. Combined that with higher engagement and clicks, this helps improve the search engine optimization (SEO) of your Shopify store.
Customer experience
On top of the benefits to your store and blog, the related posts also improve the customer experience. Readers are easily able to navigate to other pertinent posts without having to spend time and effort perusing through your post list.
Related Blog Posts: App installation
Now let’s look at how you can implement a related posts section using the Related Blog Posts app. If you run into questions with the installation or set up, you can also view the support resources for Related Blog Posts.
First, go to the app page, “Get” the app, and “Install App” on your Shopify store.
Next, you’ll have to install the code
{% include 'relatedblogs' %}
in your “article.liquid” file to add the related posts section on your blog post page.
To do this, first, navigate to your theme files by going to Online Store > Themes > “…” button > Edit HTML/CSS.
Navigate to your theme files to add the code
Click on the “article.liquid” file. You have the choice to add the related posts section anywhere you like in this file. To add the section right after the end of a post, add the above code after the
{{ article.content }}
line.
Add related posts at the end of an article
Your article or blog post pages will now show the related posts section at the end of a post — here’s an example site using the app you can check out as a reference.
Related posts section view on article pages
The app will show the related blog posts with default settings. You can customize the settings by navigating to the app within your dashboard.
Related Blog Posts: Settings
Once you install the code snippet to your theme file, you don’t have to use any more code to change the settings or design of the related posts section. Within the app, you will see two tabs where you can make these changes.
Settings
In the settings section, you can change the functionality of the app. You can change:
- What the posts should be related to – content, tags and author, or one of these. By default, all three are selected as this can provide the most options to readers.
- Number of posts to display. By default, 3 posts are displayed in the related posts section.
- Whether or not to display featured image thumbnails in the section.
- What to include in the section if there are no related posts. You can choose to leave the section blank, show random posts, or display a custom message.
- Which blogs to add the section to if you have multiple blogs. By default, the section is activated on all blogs.
- Choose whether to show articles from the same blog, or across blogs if you have multiple blogs. The default option shows articles across blogs, but if you have enough posts on multiple blogs, it may be more relevant if articles are shown from the same blog.
- Set posts to be excluded from the list by tags or IDs.
Design
In the design section, you can change the appearance of the related posts section using HTML and CSS.
Change the appearance of the related posts section
By default, title of the section is “Related Posts”. You can customize this to be something non-standard. You can also increase or decrease the character length for the related post that’s shown below the post title. By default, the length is 60 but you can increase this to give readers a longer preview of the related post.
Related posts section after minor design changes
You can input custom CSS styles to the section as well.
Related Blog Posts: Summary
A blog can be an integral part of your Shopify store. It helps improve SEO, engage customers, and build your brand’s voice. There are a number of ways you can improve your blog through content. You can also improve engagement by including recent posts or search by tags in the blog sidebar. But, these articles may not be completely relevant to the article a viewer is browsing.
The Related Blog Posts app allows you to include related blogs based on content, tags, and authors. You can add the related blog posts section at the end of an article (or anywhere else on the blog page). This helps create further engagement as the reader sees other articles on your blog that they may not have seen otherwise. You can customize different aspects of the section through the app. After you install the code snippet in the theme file, you don’t need to use any code to customize the settings.
Here is a short video by the app developer that includes some examples of the app in use:
What apps do you use to enhance your blog? Please share in the comments below.
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