If you would like to show some beautiful image thumbnails below your blog posts under related posts category then its time you should be implementing different options listed below. We have tried many different options but the best of these are listed below.
Linkwithin
The first of foremost recommendation would be to use the Linkwithin Plugin which is one of the best suggestion because it offers with automatically generated thumbnails which are perfectly aligned on your blog either in horizontal or vertical format based on your requirements.
To get started you need to sign-up at linkwithin.com by entering your Email address, Blog URL, Platform and width. Once you have entered this information you will get a download link for the plugin following which you need to upload to your wp-content > plugins folder and then activate the same. Following this the thumbnails would be automatically generated and displayed on the single posts pages of your blog.
YARPP with Thumbnails
YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) is one useful plugin which would offer you with multiple options like showing related posts in text / link format and along with thumbnails too. This means that you can either select any of these two options and along with this the related posts are also shown on your blogs feed giving the email subscribers more related posts.
You will have a big plugin options page where the right options have to be set to display thumbnails with related posts which are taken from custom images added to your blog posts. The plugin offers you to automatically display them but if you would like to place them at some specific location then you need to add the following code.
<?php if (function_exists('related_posts')){ ?>
<?php related_posts();?>
<?php }?>
One problem with YARPP is that it also takes a bit of your CPU on the server following which you will have to upgrade your server in case of more traffic on your blog. Check out our article on Reduce CPU Server Load for Blogs by Removing Related Posts Plugin
Related Posts Thumbnails
This is the plugin which I have been using on many of our blogs because of it offers with more customization options and the thumbnails which are generated are better. The plugin would search for the thumbnail created from the first image in the blog post but if it’s not found then you need to first generate a thumbnail for all the images.
To generate thumbnail for the first image you need to use the plugin called “Auto Post Thumbnail” which would take a few minutes time for generating the thumbnails based on the server resources following which they would be displayed on the blog below the single posts. These thumbnails are displayed with the blog post title below the image and a few mouse over effects are also displayed giving the reader a more stylish way of displaying related posts and giving the blog owner more page views.
thanks!! i have got good reviews about link within and i will try the third one now, can u advice on which one is lightest on server and site load time? or would it be even better to make a custom code since i am using thesis?
I find Related Posts Thumbnails as one of the useful plugins to display the related posts with thumbnails.
The LinkWithin plugin looks the best among all. YARPP too is good, but I like the way LinkWithin does the job by listing the posts based on the relevance.
Yes, Link Within is best. I’m also using the same, used to use YARPP before.
Linkwithin rocks!!!
thanks for the tips
Hi Amit – Can you pl tell me what is the plugin that you use to show related posts (which appears at the bottom of the page after you scroll down)