Top Plugins for Large WordPress Sites

The new East Tamaki Healthcare website has 92 pages (and that’s not counting the news posts). There are a number of plugins and functions which can help manage WordPress sites like this one with a large amount of content and ensure that website visitors can always find what they are looking for.

WordPress Helps You Organise Content

WordPress’ built-in content management system lets you create as many pages as you need, then easily organise them into either parent pages or child pages in any order you like. WordPress then builds your navigation menu bar automatically using this information. New pages slot in seamlessly as you create them.

NOTE: You can also create pages off your child pages (I call them grandchildren).

WordPress Helps You Communicate

Every WordPress website has a built-in blogging system allowing any number of users to login to the website and write news and articles under any number of different categories. This news is automatically categorised and archived and appears on pages and sidebars automatically. Depending on the access level of the user, their news is published immediately or saved in pending format for an administrator to approve. Use the blog for regular communication with your target markets (create blog category for each market segment) and jobs.

Plugins for Large WordPress Sites

There are a number of plugins which you can add to your WordPress website to make it easier for your customers to find the information they are looking for. I have used all of these on the East Tamaki Healthcare website so have a browse through to see them all in action.

1. Breadcrumbs Plugin

The Breadcrumbs Plugin adds a line of text links to the top of every page and post on your website to show visitors where they are on a site. There is always a homepage link plus pages show a link to the parent page and posts show links to categories the post is listed under. This allows visitors to work backwards through your site to get to more information. You can see breadcrumbs at the top of this post and every other page/post on my website.

2. List Subpages Plugin

This plugin will automatically display a hyperlinked list of child pages on every parent page. Once you have activated the plugin, you can either paste a small piece of code on each parent page or duplicate your page.php file, add a line of code, then save as a new page template. When editing parent page, just choose this template from the drop down list instead of the standard page template. Full instructions on the plugin authors website.

3. List Category Posts Plugin

This plugin will automatically show the most recent posts published to a certain category directly on your website pages ensuring website visitors see the latest updates and news on any of your products or services. This allows to to show relevant fresh content inside your static webpages. A good example is to create a jobs page, then use the plugin to display all the most recent jobs (written as blog posts) on the page. On the East Tamaki Healthcare website, I have done just this so that patients, job seekers and health professionals all see relevant news and updates. Instructions on how to use this plugin on my previous post.

4. Post Notification Plugin

By adding the Post Notification Plugin to your WordPress website and a subscribe box, all your news/blog posts will go out automatically in email newsletter format to people on your subscriber lists. Best of all, your website visitors can subscribe to only the categories they are interested in. Promote your newsletter to each of your target audiences and tell them which category to tick when they confirm their subscription. NOTE: You can also add subscribers yourself. More about this plugin on my previous post.

See an example of a targeted signup page.

Other Tips for Large Sites

• Don’t forget to include a search box visible from every page. The best place is for this is usually in the website’s header or in the sidebar.
• Think about using 2 separate navigation bars to split content for different target markets.
• To only show parent pages, edit your header.php file and change the depth to 1. To show parent and child pages only, set depth to 2