The recommendation bar is not something new, in fact you see it on many websites, including on hongkiat.com. It’s that box that appears to the right side of your blog or website with links to articles on your site, offered as ‘recommended for reading’ to your visitors. This is a good approach to adopt if you want to increase your pageviews, but bear in mind that not all visitors would like to be interrupted with such a floating box.
There are many recommendation bars available as plugins, but in this article, we will share with you one with viral features, with Facebook integration for a Like-happy scene fit for your Facebook-fan reader.
Adding Facebook Recommendation Bar
To add this Facebook Recommendation Bar, log in to your WordPress Admin, go to Plugins > Add New at the left sidebar, search for Facebook and click on Search Plugin.
When the result appears, click on the Install Now link.
Now click on Activate Plugin.
Create New Facebook App
Before you can use the Facebook plugin for WordPress, go to the Facebook App page and click on the button Create New App.
Fill up the form with your App Name and App Name Space, then click Continue.
Now you will be redirected to enter more details of your new app. The required details are; yourContact Email, App Domain (your blog domain), Site URL and Mobile Web URL. Click on ‘Save Changes‘ to save.
Note: For the site and mobile web URL, make sure to include
http:// at the front, and end it with /
After all changes are saved, copy App ID, App Secret and the Namespace
Setting Up Facebook Plugin On WordPress
Go back to your WordPress Admin > Facebook on the left sidebar, enter the details to the given columns and click on Save Changes.
Once saved, you will be redirected to the plugin options page. Check the Recommendations Barto activate it, set the option details if needed, and click Save Changes. The options are:
- Trigger – the percentage of the page scrolled by the reader, before the bar will appear
- Read Time – time in seconds, of reading time by visitor, before the bar will appear
- Action – Select to show Like or Recommend button
- Side – where you want the recommendation bar to appear, left or right bottom of your site.
Finally, visit your own blog to test run this. Open up any article and you will see the recommendation bar appear right where you set it (left or right), with links to recommended articles as well as the ‘Like’ button.
Conclusion
The Facebook recommendation bar has a simple interface and recommends only two articles at a time for further reading. The ‘Like’ button helps you to increase the chances of getting more Likes for your article, and makes it easy to promote on Facebook.
So, what do you think of this plugin? If you have this installed already, did it help keep readers longer on your site? Let us know in the comment bellow, especially if you have a better plugin to share.
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