Techniques for Easy Access to Article Series'

[Educator]

As those who have visited our site before can attest, we write about many of our home reno & energy conservation projects in a series of articles, where there is a link at the bottom of one article in a series to the next.

I have had requests to make it easier for the visitor to find the 1st article in a series though 2 links or less.

What I have done is to create that Projects Listing page I mentioned in the colour scheme post previously. I list a link to the first article in a series as well as a picture beside the link to introduce the series.

I'd appreciate feedback if this is appropriate, easy to use, and if there is an alternate approach that I should consider for this.

Many thanks in advance.
Dan

[camp185]

Having it easy to find previous articles is a huge plus, and they way you did it with thumbnails helps for an even quicker reference. Another big plus to improve navigation is having a search function. You are using WP, it should be easy to add. Make it available on every page of the site.

[Educator]

Originally Posted by camp185

Another big plus to improve navigation is having a search function. You are using WP, it should be easy to add. Make it available on every page of the site.

Hi camp185. Thanks for this.

Currently I'm using the Google Search feature from Adsense but it defaults to Google and not my site (and not generating any revenue at all).

And, it's located low on the right side of the page.

Perhaps I should move it much closer to the top of the page and use a WP plug in so it's just for my page? Or do you think that it's best to keep the Google Search feature so folks have the option of searching my site or the internet? If so, any idea how I can have it default to searching my site?

Many thanks for the feedback.
Dan

[camp185]

You should have a file in your WP theme folder called searchform.php. Just slip this in your sidebar page:

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/searchform.php'); ?>

The value of Google's search is pretty low, unless you are just getting a ton of searches that way and making money. This is not the case for most people. Also, you need to wait until Google caches the page before it become available.

Using WP search, you keep your visitors on your site, and the results search all pages, even ones you made 5 minutes ago.

[Educator]

Thanks very much, camp185.

I'll take a look and give it a try in a day or two.

Many thanks,
Dan