WordPress Plugins to Manage Your Page and Post Order

You’ve got your WordPress blog set up the way you’d originally envisioned. You think you’ve got everything covered. Then you decide that you want to highlight certain posts that have been popular but don’t want them somewhere in the depths of ‘your archives where no one can find them. And the page order seems to have a mind of it’s own and you want the ‘Portfolio’ page to be first. WordPress doesn’t necessarily make this easy. You do some more reading. Find out making order changes involves code. You break out into a cold sweat. Relax. It’s not that bad. There is the option of playing around with the code to order your pages or posts, but you don’t have to. Heavy sigh of relief.

Pages? Posts?

Initially there may be some confusion regarding the difference between pages and posts. Just consider pages as static bits of information. The content rarely changes on pages. It’s ‘About You,’ ‘ Contact’ or ‘Legal’ information that’s featured on pages.

Posts are the conversation that you’re having with your readers. You will spend most of your time writing posts and engaging your audience. Posts are listed in reverse chronological order, which means they need to be timely. Older posts are archived over time. Readers can access older posts, but have to dig deeper and take more time. There is an option to organize your posts based on tags and categories making it easier on your readers to find information.

WordPress will let you sort your posts and pages, but only in ascending or descending order. There are going to be times when you want to order your posts and pages in a specific way. This is where WordPress Plugins come to the rescue. ‘Again. If you’ve gotten this far I’m going to make the assumption (which may get me in trouble) that you’ve installed plugins and don’t need further instruction. You can always email me and tell me how wrong I am.

Many WordPress themes have default functions such as Pages that are often used by default, as your top navigation and this may be something you don’t want. Also, by default, Pages in WordPress are order alphabetically, which can potentially be a problem as well. Be aware that the theme you choose can have a direct impact on the order of your blog pages.

Reorder Posts By Date

There is one very simple way to reorder your posts without a plugin. All you have to do is change the date. Click on Posts in your admin area, find the post you want to move. Click on Quick Edits under the title of the post. You will then see a screen that allows you to change the post date. If you want a post higher up in your post order, change the date to be more recent.

WordPress Plugins to the Rescue

Post-Types-Order

Here’s a list of WordPress plugins that will make the whole process of re-ordering posts and pages very easy:

WordPress My Post Order allows you to sort pages, posts, and custom post types in any order and display the same information in your sidebar. You can choose individual posts or posts by category.

WordPress Simple Page Ordering enables you to order you pages (and other hierarchical post types) with an easy drag and drop. A drop down is also added to change items shown per page.

WordPress Post Types Order also uses a drag and drop interface letting you change the order of any custom post type.

WordPress Facebook Like Posts Order uses facebook likes to order your posts. This will position your most liked articles at the top.

WordPress Global Posts Ordering is another simple plugin that allows you to easily change the order of your via drag and drop.

Play around with the WordPress plugin options and see what works best for you. I personally like WordPress My Post Order and WordPress Simple Page Ordering. I’m all about ease and flexibility and these two plugins provide me with just what I need.

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