Are you looking to add pagination to your WordPress website?
WordPress Pagination is an important element of your site. It helps your users to locate your pages easily. Your website doesn’t need to have all the necessary details on a single page.
Users may have to visit many pages to get their desired information. It offers easy navigation to them. They can just click on the page number and visit the page.
Pagination, in simple words, is a process of dividing documents into pages. It is a function that splits content into separate pages.
Let’s dive into the content and learn how to create WordPress pagination.
Benefits of Adding Pagination to Your WordPress Website
Here are the benefits of adding Pagination to your WordPress website:
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How to Add Pagination to Your WordPress Website
There are two major methods to add paginations to your WordPress website. One is through a plugin and the other is through Ajax.
In this article, we will give you an overview of how to add pagination to WordPress using these two methods. These methods work irrespective of whichever theme you are using.
Blog Pagination in WordPress
WordPress pagination is most popularly used in blogs. You may add it to individual posts or use it as a way to arrange blog category pages in a proper way.
Blog pagination has lots of benefits. It is beneficial for you as well as the users. For instance, it may improve your search engine page ranking. Because it increases the number of links that point to your website.
It makes navigation simple for visitors. They can simply click on a page number and navigate to the page instead of going through a large number of pages.
If they spend less time searching for a page, they will spend more time interacting with your site content. This is good for you as well. They will develop a positive impression of you.
Method 1: Pagination Plugins
The best way to add WordPress pagination to your site is by using plugins. Nowadays there are many WordPress plugins available in the market.
Keeping your needs in mind you have to choose one. Once you find a suitable plugin, all you need to do is to install and activate it.
Here are the two most widely used WordPress pagination plugins:
1. WP-PageNavi
WP-PageNavi is a powerful WordPress plugin for pagination. It allies you to change the previous/next navigation into a numbered page navigation pattern.
It comes with many other options. If you want to replace the Older post / Newer post links, the plugin WP_Pagenavi ( ) template tag, generates fancy pagination links. If you have a little coding knowledge, this is one of the best plugins for you.
2. WP Paginate
WP Paginate is a flexible and simple WordPress pagination plugin. It improves the users’ experience with advanced and easy navigation on your site.
It allows you to add numbered buttons anywhere on your site and also helps you customize page buttons.
With this plugin, you can add custom CSS for pagination links with the custom CSS tab in the Settings section.
Method 2: Ajax Pagination in WordPress
Ajax or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a set of programming techniques that enable developers to make asynchronous web applications. Ajax sends and reclaims information from a server without affecting the page’s appearance.
As it runs in the background. It is used to change page content without loading the whole page. It is usually seen with infinite scroll but is also applicable to pagination.
With Ajax pagination, a website owner can update new content on his site without hampering the user experience. Readers can see all the new posts when they are on the page.
It does not reload every time. Apart from that, when users click on the next page, they don’t need to wait till the page fully loads.
Ajax Pagination Without Plugins
Ajax pagination can be created without using plugins. But, the process needs a bit of coding. Which means you have to create a child theme first.
This way, you will be able to make some changes to the current theme of your website without affecting the default code. This minimizes the chances of mistakes. It also makes it easy for you to add your own code to the theme files.
Once you set up the child theme, you have to follow three easy steps to set up your pagination.
We have given an overview of the process here –
1. Create an Event
At this stage, you decide which action on your site will trigger the JavaScript part of the process. For example, clicking a page number.
2. Create an Ajax Call
After the JavaScript is activated, a data request will be sent to the webserver from your side.
3. Communicate with WordPress
The server’s response will determine how WordPress will function. In this case, it will call up a new page of the content without reloading the whole page.
Custom Pagination
Even if you don’t use Ajax, you may create paginations for your WordPress website. WordPress plugins come with lots of useful features.
You can easily alter the functionality of your site’s pagination on your own. For instance, you may change the number of posts that you want to appear per page. By default setting, it is 10 in WordPress but you can have as many as you want.
To do so follow the steps below:
Step 1: Head over to your WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Go to Settings – > Reading -> Blog Pages Show at most
Step 3: Here you can type the desired value.
Step 4: Once you are done, Save the changes.
You may also split a single post into many pages. Very few people are aware of this feature. To have this, you need to add <!Nextpage> between the contents you want to split. (in the Text Editor)
If you are technically sound, you can experiment with CSS and customize your pagination even further. You can change the background, font colors, padding elements, hover effects, etc. with a little effort, you can set the pagination of your site the way you want.
Conclusion
We have tried here to throw some light on how to add pagination to a WordPress site. Hope we could give you a clear idea. But it, in any case, is a technical process. If you are not experienced in coding, you have to take help from a developer.
If you are, check which one out of the two ways is suitable for you. Pick up the mouse and do it on your own. It is a matter of just a few minutes.
We would love to hear your feedback. Leave your comments on the comment section. If you have any questions, please let us know. We will get back to you soon.
If you liked reading this article, do check out our other interesting articles as well:
- What is Headless WordPress: Is it the Future of Web Development?
- How To Create A Beautiful Blog On WordPress Using Elementor
- Best SEO WordPress Themes To Try
Grab Responsive theme and implement pagination on your WordPress website.