Related posts sections are everywhere on blogs, and most of them are bad. Random posts the algorithm thinks are connected, recommendations that don’t fit the post above them, auto-generated thumbnails for articles the visitor already read last week. It doesn’t have to stay that way. A few minutes of thought turns this section from filler into one of the biggest engagement wins available to a blog.
Why related posts matter
A reader who finishes one post and clicks to read another is genuinely valuable to a blog. They:
- Spend meaningful additional time on your site, which boosts engagement signals.
- Build trust with you as a writer over the course of that second read.
- Increase the chance they’ll subscribe, share, or come back later.
- Read roughly twice as much of your content per visit as a single-post reader.
The related posts section is the single biggest tool available for converting “read one post” into “read several posts.” Most blogs underuse it badly.
Why most are bad
A few failure modes show up again and again:
Auto-generated by category
“Show 6 random posts from the same category” sounds reasonable until you consider the numbers. If the category has 80 posts, the 6 shown are essentially arbitrary, and the reader might see posts with nothing in common with the one they just finished.
Auto-generated by tag
This is slightly better than category-based selection, but still random within the tag. Many bloggers also use tags too broadly for “same tag” to reliably mean “related.”
“Recent posts” disguised as related
Some themes default to showing recent posts in the related section. That isn’t related content, it’s just the latest content, and it’s not useful to a reader who just finished a two-year-old post on an entirely different topic.
Too many items
Some related sections show 10 to 12 thumbnails at once. That’s enough to trigger choice overload, and a reader faced with that many options often picks none of them and scrolls straight past.
Bad thumbnails
Stock photos with no relevance, generic placeholders, or tiny low-resolution images all make a related section look cheap, and that perception alone reduces clicks.
What good related posts look like
1. Genuinely related to what the reader just finished
This means more than “same category” or “same tag.” It means actually related in substance. A reader who finished a post on backing up a WordPress blog should see posts on adjacent operational topics, such as security or migration, not random posts pulled loosely from a general WordPress category.
2. Limited to 3 to 5 items
Three is plenty for most posts, and five is roughly the ceiling before choice overload starts working against you. A peer-reviewed study on related-article recommendations, published in the International Journal on Digital Libraries, found that click-through rate dropped sharply as the number of recommendations grew, from 0.41% with a single recommendation down to 0.09% with fifteen. Most digital libraries in that study settled on 3 to 5 recommendations for exactly this reason.
3. Different from what they just read
If the post covers topic X, the related posts should cover related but distinct topics. The reader doesn’t need three more posts on the exact same subject. They want the natural next step in their reading, not a repeat of what they just finished.
4. Visual consistency
Matching thumbnail sizes and a consistent style go a long way here. Featured images that actually match each post’s topic help the whole section read as intentional rather than automated.
The three setups that work
1. Hand-curated per post (best)
At the end of each post, link manually to three or four specific related posts you’ve chosen yourself. This is what most strong blogs actually do. It takes about two minutes per post and produces dramatically better results than any plugin can manage on its own.
The mechanics are simple: at the bottom of each post, add a “You may also like” or “Read next” section with three links to specifically chosen posts.
For an existing blog, spend an afternoon adding curated related sections to your top 20 posts by traffic. The engagement bump tends to show up almost immediately.
2. Plugin with topic clusters (good)
A plugin that lets you define topic clusters or manually assign relationships between posts is a solid middle ground. A few worth knowing:
- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP), an algorithm-based option that’s been actively maintained for well over a decade and remains one of the most widely used related-posts plugins for WordPress.
- Contextual Related Posts, which takes a similar algorithmic approach.
- Inline Related Posts, which inserts related links mid-post rather than only at the end.
These options beat category-default behavior consistently, but they still depend on the underlying algorithm getting the match right.
3. Theme’s curated featured-post functionality (good if available)
Some themes let you assign “related” posts per post directly through custom fields, which works well if your theme supports it natively. Aurora includes this kind of control in its single post layout options, so you’re not stuck relying purely on automated matching if you’d rather curate the section by hand.
Where to place them
End of post (standard)
This is the most common placement: after the conclusion and before the comments. It works well for most blogs and most readers expect to find it there.
Inline (mid-post)
Some themes and plugins inject a related link partway through the post. This is effective for long posts, and while it’s less common, it performs well when used deliberately.
Sidebar
Some blogs place related posts in the sidebar instead. This converts lower than end-of-post placement, but it also doesn’t compete with the reading experience the way an inline link can.
Both end and inline (for long posts)
For posts over 2,000 words, having one inline contextual link mid-post plus a related section at the end captures both the deeply engaged reader and the skimmer who never makes it to the bottom.
What to display
Each related post item should generally include:
- Post title. This is the most important element by far.
- Featured image thumbnail. This drives clicks more than any other single element.
- Excerpt, optionally one to two lines. Useful for posts where the title alone doesn’t sell the click.
- Category or topic indicator, which is optional but helps orient the reader quickly.
Worth skipping:
- Publication dates, which often make otherwise-useful posts feel stale.
- Author bylines, which read as clutter on single-author blogs.
- View counts, which rarely add anything a reader needs.
What about “Read next” patterns
Some blogs use a single “Read next:” link at the end instead of a grid of three to five thumbnails. The pattern reads something like: “If this was useful, read next: [one specific post].”
The upsides:
- A single choice tends to produce a higher click-through rate.
- It feels curated and personal rather than automated.
- It’s visually cleaner than a grid of thumbnails.
The downsides:
- Offering less choice can mean fewer total clicks overall.
- It requires genuinely more thought per post than a plugin-generated grid.
Both patterns work well in the right context. The single “Read next” link is increasingly popular on personality-driven blogs, while the 3 to 5 grid still performs well for content-heavy, resource-style blogs.
The contextual link inside the post
Often the most-clicked “related post” link isn’t in the formal related section at all. It’s an inline contextual link inside the body of the post itself, placed exactly where a related topic becomes genuinely relevant to what the reader is thinking about.
Something like: “If you’re now wondering about X, we covered that in [Post Y].” Placed mid-post and clearly contextual, this kind of link consistently performs better than any sidebar widget. This is really just internal linking applied inside the body of a post rather than confined to a dedicated section.
Don’t rely only on the formal related section at the bottom. Embed contextual links like this throughout the body wherever they genuinely fit.
How to audit your current setup
- Pick your top 10 posts by traffic.
- For each one, look at exactly what shows up in the related section right now.
- Ask honestly: would a reader actually want to click through to these?
- If the answer is no, the auto-generation isn’t doing its job.
- Either replace the related section with hand-curated links, or switch to a smarter plugin that lets you intervene.
The whole audit takes about an hour, and the engagement impact from fixing what you find tends to be real and immediate.
Engineer for the second click
Related posts work when they’re actually related, which sounds obvious but rarely happens by default. Auto-generation by category is essentially random. Curating by hand takes about two minutes per post and dramatically outperforms automated alternatives. Use 3 to 5 items, include thumbnails, and place the section at the end of the post, optionally also inline for longer pieces. Add contextual links throughout the body too, since those often out-click the formal related section entirely. The reader who clicks through to a second post is the real win here, and it’s worth engineering for deliberately rather than leaving to whatever a plugin decides on its own.
