How to Show Related Pages in WordPress

Keeping visitors on your site longer—and guiding them to your most valuable content—depends heavily on how well you connect your internal pages. One of the simplest and most effective ways to do this is by displaying related pages at the end of your content or in strategic spots throughout your layout. Done properly, this improves user experience, reduces bounce rate, and strengthens your overall internal linking strategy.

Why Showing Related Pages Matters

When someone finishes reading a page, they’re at a decision point: leave your site or keep exploring. Showing relevant internal links at that exact moment gives them a clear next step.

Adding related pages in WordPress offers several key benefits:

Better user experience: Readers can easily discover more resources around the same topic or section of your site.
Improved engagement metrics: More internal clicks, longer session duration, and more pages per session.
SEO benefits: Stronger internal linking signals help search engines understand your site structure and topical relationships.
Higher conversions: Strategic related links can guide users toward service pages, key offers, or cornerstone content.

There are multiple ways to implement related pages in WordPress, ranging from no-code plugins to fully custom PHP solutions. The right approach depends on your technical skills, site size, and performance requirements.

Planning Your Related Pages Strategy

Before you install a plugin or write a single line of code, get clear on what “related” should mean on your site. This ensures that the links you show make sense for your audience and your goals.

Define What Makes Pages “Related”

Common ways to determine relationships between pages include:

Hierarchy: Parent/child relationships in the page tree (for example, a parent landing page and its child subpages).
Taxonomies: Categories, tags, or custom taxonomies that group similar content.
Content similarity: Matching titles, keywords, or full-text similarity using algorithms.
Manual curation: Hand-picking related internal links for full editorial control.

For business sites and documentation, hierarchy and taxonomies usually work best. For blogs and large content libraries, taxonomy and content-based matching can offer better coverage.

Decide Where to Display Related Links

Placement is nearly as important as relevance. Typical locations include:

Below the main content, above the comments or footer.
In the sidebar as a widget on specific templates.
Inside the content via blocks or shortcodes.
On landing pages, highlighting related service or feature pages.

For most sites, displaying related pages directly under the content is a strong default. It feels natural and works well across devices.

Using Plugins to Show Related Pages

If you prefer not to touch code, plugins offer a straightforward way to display related internal links. Many “related posts” plugins can be configured to target pages instead of posts, or to work with custom post types.

What to Look for in a Related Content Plugin

When choosing a plugin to handle related pages, pay attention to:

Page support: Ensure it can handle pages and not just blog posts.
Selection method: Taxonomy-based, manual, or automatic content analysis.
Performance: Options for caching or index-based matching to avoid heavy database queries.
Customization: Ability to change headings, number of links, display style, and templates.
Compatibility: Gutenberg support, theme compatibility, and active maintenance.

Once you choose a plugin, the workflow is generally the same: install, activate, configure the source rules (pages, categories, tags, etc.), and decide where the related block should appear.

Using a Block to Insert Related Pages

Many modern plugins provide a dedicated block for the editor. You can:

Add the plugin’s “Related” block at the bottom of each page template or reusable pattern.
Configure the block to show a specific number of internal links.
Filter by taxonomy, parent page, or custom conditions.

This approach works well with the block editor and gives you visual control over where and how related content appears, without editing theme files.

Using the Query Loop Block for Native Related Pages

If you want a native, plugin-light approach, the Query Loop block in the block editor is one of the most flexible tools available. It lets you build your own related content section using core WordPress features.

Building a Related Pages Section with Query Loop

To create a related pages block using the Query Loop:

Edit a page template or a specific page in the block editor.
Insert a Group or Container block where you want the related section to appear.
Add a heading such as “You might also like” above it.
Insert a Query Loop block.
Configure the source to include only pages (not posts).
Filter by taxonomy, parent page, or other available conditions.
Limit the number of results and customize the inner layout (title, excerpt, featured image, etc.).

If your pages use specific categories, tags, or custom taxonomies, you can constrain the Query Loop to show only pages sharing those terms. This essentially creates a related pages section based on shared taxonomy.

Because this is a core block, it’s future-proof, theme-agnostic, and easy to tweak visually. The downside is that highly advanced matching rules may require custom code or additional plugins.

Creating Custom Related Pages with Code

For developers, a custom-coded related pages solution offers the best balance of performance, control, and design flexibility. You can decide exactly how to determine relationships, how many links to show, and how to render the markup.

Basic Approach: Related by Parent Page

A simple and efficient method is to show pages that share the same parent. This works especially well for:

Service pages grouped under a main “Services” parent.
Documentation sections with clear hierarchies.
Campaign microsites with a central hub page.

Conceptually, the logic looks like this:

Get the current page ID.
Identify its parent ID (or use the current page as the parent if it has children).
Query other pages with that parent, excluding the current one.
Render a small list of titles (and optionally excerpts or thumbnails).

This hierarchy-based approach keeps the database query light and the relationships intuitive for users.

Related Pages by Shared Taxonomies

If you use taxonomies on your pages (for example, custom categories or tags for sections, services, or topics), you can build a related section that shows other pages sharing those terms.

The high-level logic is:

Get the taxonomy terms assigned to the current page.
Query other pages that share any of those terms.
Exclude the current page from the results.
Limit the number of results and order them by date, menu order, or custom rules.

From an SEO perspective, this method often yields highly relevant internal links that reinforce your topical clusters.

Rendering a Custom Related Pages Section in a Template

Once you have a query in place, you’ll typically:

Add the code to a block theme template part, classic theme file, or a custom plugin.
Wrap the output in semantic HTML, using a heading, list, and clear link text.
Include schema-aware patterns if it fits your SEO strategy (for example, using lists of internal links in structured content areas).

From there, you can control where the section appears using conditional logic—only on pages, only on specific templates, or only under certain conditions.

Manual Internal Linking as a Complement

Even with automated or semi-automated related pages, manual internal linking still matters. It lets you:

Promote cornerstone pages from highly trafficked content.
Highlight deep resources or conversion-focused pages more aggressively.
Override automatic suggestions when you know a better internal match.

Within the editor, you can use contextual anchor text inside paragraphs to point to other pages, then rely on your related section at the bottom to surface additional options.

SEO Best Practices for Related Pages

Showing related content is valuable, but how you implement it can influence both user experience and search performance. Consider the following practices when adding related sections.

Prioritize Relevance Over Quantity

It’s better to show a small set of highly relevant pages than a large, generic list. For most layouts, three to six related links are enough. Too many options can overwhelm users and dilute the SEO benefit across too many URLs.

Use Descriptive Anchor Text

Use the actual page titles or carefully crafted variations as link text. Avoid vague labels like “click here” or “read more.” Clear anchor text helps users and gives search engines additional context about the destination page.

Keep the Markup Clean and Accessible

Wrap your related links in semantic HTML—typically a heading and an unordered list. This makes it easy for screen readers and supports clear hierarchy for search engines.

For example, a simple structure might look like:

A heading level consistent with your page hierarchy.
An unordered list of linked titles.
Optional short descriptions underneath each title.

Monitor Performance and Adjust

Once your related pages feature is live, monitor:

Click-through rates on related links.
Average session duration and pages per session.
Which pages attract the most internal clicks and which ones rarely get clicked.

Use this data to refine your rules: adjust which taxonomies you use, tune manual links, or trim items that rarely get attention.

Performance Considerations

Poorly implemented related content features can add heavy database queries or run complex content analysis on every page load. This can slow down your site and hurt both UX and SEO.

To keep things efficient:

Cache results: Use transients or plugin caching so related queries aren’t run on every request.
Index key fields: Ensure the database fields you query (post type, taxonomy relationships) are used efficiently.
Limit query size: Only fetch the fields you need and a reasonable number of posts.
Test with profiling tools: Use query monitors or performance tools to measure impact on page load times.

A lean, well-optimized related pages implementation can add meaningful value without compromising performance.

Examples of Effective Related Pages in Practice

To tie it all together, here are a few practical use cases and how you might implement them.

Service Website with Section-Based Navigation

Imagine a business site where each main service (for example, design, development, consulting) is a parent page with several child pages beneath it. A hierarchy-based related section can:

Show sibling service pages as alternatives.
Guide users deeper into more specific subservices.
Keep visitors inside the same section of the site.

A simple query for pages with the same parent, excluding the current child, gives a focused internal navigation block that feels natural to users browsing your services.

Documentation or Knowledge Base

For documentation, related pages can be determined by taxonomy (topic, feature, version) or by parent/child structure. This allows you to:

Suggest follow-up guides on closely related subjects.
Promote “next steps” content at the end of each article.
Keep users moving along a logical learning path.

Combining manual links inside the content with an automatic related section at the bottom often offers the best of both worlds: editorial control plus systematic coverage.

Content Hubs and Topic Clusters

On sites built around topic clusters or content hubs, related pages help reinforce the hub-and-spoke structure by:

Pointing from detailed supporting pages back to the main hub.
Linking related spokes to each other.
Keeping the entire cluster tightly interconnected.

In this scenario, taxonomy-based or manually curated related pages sections can significantly strengthen your internal linking and topical authority.

Conclusion

Adding related pages in WordPress is a small enhancement that can have a big impact on how visitors move through your site and how search engines understand your content.

Whether you use a plugin, the Query Loop block, or custom code, focus on:

Clear, meaningful relationships between pages.
Clean, accessible HTML output.
Performance-conscious implementation.
Continuous refinement based on analytics and user behavior.

By thoughtfully surfacing relevant internal links at key moments, you guide users deeper into your content, highlight your most important pages, and build a stronger foundation for long-term search visibility.