9 WordPress Hacks to Encourage User Interactivity

All bloggers would like to get more interaction and participation from their readers and visitors. In this post we’ll look at nine different things you can do to your WordPress theme to add the possibility of some type of interaction. Some involves comments, social media, and other ways of getting readers involved.

1- Allow Visitors to Email Posts to Their Friends

If your readers enjoy and appreciate the posts on your blog they may be interested in emailing them to their friends. On most news websites you’ll see a link that says “email to a friend,” but it’s not as common on blogs. Adding this functionality into your theme is not as difficult as you might think.

To add an “email this” link, use the following code in your single.php file:

<a href=”mailto:?subject=<?php the_title();
?>&amp;body=<?php the_permalink() ?>” title=”Send this
article to a friend!”>Email this</a>

Source: WP Recipes

2- Add Custom Bookmark Links

Many blogs receive tremendous exposure from social media sites, and encouraging your readers to interact by voting or bookmarking can make a big difference in terms of traffic levels. There are plugins and widgets available for this purpose, as well as buttons and badges from the social media sites, but if you’d like more control over the look or if you would just like to do it yourself it is possible.

Bookmark with Delicious:

<a title=”Bookmark this post at Delicious” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://delicious.com/post?url=&lt;?php the_permalink(); ?&gt;&amp;title=&lt;?php echo urlencode(get_the_title($id)); ?&gt;”>Bookmark at Delicious</a>

Digg:

<a title=”Submit this post to Digg” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=&lt;?php the_permalink(); ?&gt;”>Digg this!</a>

Twitter:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=<?php echo urlencode(“Currently reading: “); ?><?php the_permalink(); ?>” title=”Share this article with your Twitter followers”>Tweet this!</a>

StumbleUpon:

<a title=”Share this post at StumbleUpon” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=&lt;?php the_permalink(); ?&gt;&amp;title=&lt;?php echo urlencode(get_the_title($id)); ?&gt;”>Stumble this!</a>

Source: Perishable Press

3- Show Most Recent Comments

One of the most important ways that blogs can encourage readers to get involved is through the comments. There are a number of different strategies for increasing comments and participation from readers, and many of them involve placing extra emphasis on the comments. By displaying the most recent comments (in the sidebar for example) you may be able to encourage more comments because visitors will see that you value their participation.

To display a list of the most recent comments, use the following code in your theme:

comments
LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb-&gt;posts ON ($wpdb-&gt;comments.comment_post_ID =
$wpdb-&gt;posts.ID)
WHERE comment_approved = ’1′ AND comment_type = ” AND
post_password = ”
ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC
LIMIT 10″;
$comments = $wpdb-&gt;get_results($sql);
$output = $pre_HTML;
$output .= “\n
<ul>”;
foreach ($comments as $comment) {
$output .= “\n
<li>”.strip_tags($comment-&gt;comment_author)
.”:” . “<a href=”\”>ID) .
“#comment-” . $comment-&gt;comment_ID . “\” title=\”on ” .
$comment-&gt;post_title . “\”&gt;” . strip_tags($comment-&gt;com_excerpt)
.”</a></li>
“;
}
$output .= “\n</ul>
“;
$output .= $post_HTML;
echo $output;?&gt;

Source: WP Hacks

4- Add a “Share on Facebook” Link

While social media and social networking are commonly integrated with blogging, it’s more common to see a Digg or Tweetmeme button than one that will allow readers to share the link via Facebook. Since Facebook is such an incredibly popular site, it may provide additional exposure for your blog and provide more opportunities for your readers to interact with your content.

To add a “share on Facebook” link, use the following code:

<a href=”http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=&lt;?php the_permalink();?&gt;&amp;t=&lt;?php the_title(); ?&gt;” target=”blank”>Share on Facebook</a>

Source: WP Recipes

5- Add Translation Links

As a blogger, you may be surprised to see how many of your visitors and subscribers come from various countries. While these people may be able to read and understand your posts, there may be some times when they have difficulty or where they would like to share the post with someone who may not be able to read it. In these case, translation can come in handy.

Inserting the code shown below will allow your visitors to easily use Google’s translation services:

<ul id=”translations”>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Cde”>Translate this page to Deutsch</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Ces”>Translate this page to Espanol</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Cfr”>Translate this page to Francais</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Cit”>Translate this page to Italiano</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Cpt”>Translate this page to Portugues</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Car”>Translate this page to Arabic</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Cja”>Translate this page to Japanese</a></li>
<li><a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://translate.google.com/translate?u=&lt;?php echo urlencode(‘http://’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?&gt;&amp;langpair=en%7Cko”>Translate this page to Korean</a></li>
</ul>

Source: Perishable Press

6- Rearrange the Comments to Show Most Recent Comments First

Having a blog that receives a lot of comments from readers can in some ways discourage others from participating. Some readers will not take the time to leave a comment if they feel like theirs will be buried below 100 other comments. One trick to reward those who are going to take the time to comment is to list the comments with the most recent on top, rather than the oldest one being on top.

Find the following code in your comments.php file (please note that not all themes use the same coding for the comments.php file):

foreach ($comments as $comment)

and before it add:

$comments = array_reverse($comments);

Source: WordPress Forums

7- Add a User-Submitted News Section

User-submitted news or community news sections can be a great way for visitors to get involved at your site. With a news section you will be able to display links to relevant posts at other blogs, and your readers will be able to submit posts that they have found to be helpful, or get some extra promotion by submitting links to their own posts.

The process of adding a news section is more involved than just copying and pasting some code, so I will not be providing code for this one, but Tripwire Magazine published a post a few months ago that will lead you through the process. See How to: WordPress 2.7+ User Link Feed Submit Form and Widget.

8- Display Facebook Status on Your Blog

Many blogs display most recent tweets, but it’s also possible to share your Facebook status on your blog. There are a few steps involved in doing this with WordPress, and Hongkiat has a tutorial that will lead you through the process. See How to Display Facebook Statuses on WordPress Blog.

9- Google Custom Search

One of the best ways for visitors to find what they are looking for is to use a site-wide search. Unfortunately, the default WordPress search isn’t much help in most cases. However, you can easily add custom search powered by Google to your blog (plus you can monetize the search through AdSense).

In order to get your own custom search from Google, you will need to sign up with them and they will provide the code. Pro Blog Design has a tutorial that takes you through all of the steps that are involved. See Make a Google Custom Search for Your Blog, and Make Money.