The idea for this post was sparked by an interesting article by EyeSpi on link-love.
This article reminded me that this site’s blogroll is slightly different from most and I decided to tell you how I implemented these changes. I have previously posted on the reasons for this change. I do not show a list of text links in the blogroll, I show a graphic for each site. This blogroll I do not show on every page, it is only visible from the home page. The additional graphics do tend to slow the home page down slightly but I feel the benefits outweigh the slight loss in load time.
When adding links to the blogroll under Manage, Links in WordPress you have to ensure that you have entered a web address for each site added to your blogroll.
Then I had to get the graphics loaded. In my case I used the Entrecard graphics of the relevant sites. If you scroll down the page where you edit your links you will find an advanced options section, it is here that the graphics are added.
Next I had to change the markup in sidebar.php. I used the following code:
<?php if (is_home()) : ?>
<?php wp_list_bookmarks('categorize=1&title_before=<h4>&title_after=</h4>&category_before=&category_before=&orderby=name&show_images=1'); ?>
<?php endif; ?>
The ‘is_home’ bit ensures that the blogroll is only shown on the home page. The rest of the code does all that is required to add a heading to the list as well as add the necessary graphics with links in place. WordPress will use the name you have given to the category you have used for your blogroll, as the heading on the list (in this case it is ‘Blogroll’).
All the links will be shown in a standard unordered list.
That is all it took, pretty simple. Just as a matter of interest, many of the links on my blogroll are receiving clicks through to their sites. The better looking graphics are getting the clicks, the rest not. This should tell us all something.
Till next time.
Thanks for the lesson in sprucing up the blogroll! I had no idea that you could pull in a graphic that way — how cool! Now I need to go update mine.
I agree that having that graphic makes the blogroll more visually appealing. I question whether using EntreCard graphics is the best way as IMO, it tends to make your blogroll look like another PW ad bank to some extent.
The one graphic I do have in my blogroll (and I did hand coding to get that one there, not the way you did it) is a png file that’s not square. I realize it’s easier to code for and allot space for images that are uniform in height and width, but having something that doesn’t LOOK like an ad may encourage more visitors to click? Hmmmmm — post material?
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Margaret, the only reason I used the EC graphics is because they were on hand. Only one site in the blogroll is not an EC member and this person mailed me the graphic to use. The size and the shape does not matter, the same way of inserting them into the sidebar can still be used. Thanks for commenting.
Lyndi, thank you for including me in your blogroll!
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Pleasure
Hi Lyndi, it looks great! Now if only I can figure out how to do something similar in my blogroll page…
To do something like this on a page you will require a template for the relevant page. See my earlier post on this topic. In this template you can use this same code (minus the ‘is_home’ bit) to generate such a blogroll.
I like the look of your blgoroll, but if I used graphics for all those on my roll it would just be entirely too long. Thanks for the tips though.
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I am afraid you have to limit the number of sites if you want to do something like this. I am sure the feature WP has to include graphics in the links page, can be used for many other interesting things. Thanks for visiting.
Lyndi,
That is actually pretty cool. I have a dofollow, text link blog roll, that shows on the main page only. I don’t think I would use images for my blog roll, because it would slow down the load time. But, I am thinking of trying this on one of my other blogs.
I do not use many other graphics on the home page so the increase in download time is minimal.
I used to have a dynamic sidebar but I didn’t do it in my present theme cos I don’t have much content to put. But I may try this blog roll image link, it’s pretty cool. I have a blogroll page and it’s kind of a long list.
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For a page you will have to make a few changes. See the comment I made above in reply to FragileHeart.
Lindy – Great post! I may try to do that on my site or my outdoors blog. The only downside is the space it takes but it does look good! PS – I stumbled your post.
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Thanks Justin, appreciated.