Want to make your blog as addictive as your Facebook news feed? While you probably don’t have quite as much traffic as Facebook, by adding infinite scroll to WordPress, you can get that same cool “endless scrolling” effect for your WordPress blog.
In case you’re not familiar with the Facebook news feed, ‘infinite scroll’, sometimes known as continuous scroll, means whenever a visitor scrolls to the bottom of the page, your site will automatically load new content, rather than forcing the user to click ‘next’ to perform an action.
In this post, I’ll share some of the case studies supporting infinite scroll and then I’ll show you how to easily add infinite scroll to your WordPress site.
How Can An Infinite Scroll Help Your Blog?
Infinite scroll can help engage your readers, which can subsequently lead to:
- Higher time on site
- Lower bounce rates
- More pages per visit
For example, here is some evidence from big publishers supporting infinite scroll:
- The Time.com team decreased their bounce rate by 15% after shifting to infinite scroll
- Time.com also increased its rate of users reading a second piece of content by 21%
- NBC.com increased its pages per visit by 20%
More big publishers are joining the likes of Time.com and NBC.com, with Slate recently hopping on the infinite scroll train.
Should Every Website Use Infinite Scroll?
No. While infinite scroll is great for some sites, it’s not right for every website. Nielsen Norman Group, a user experience consultancy, has a good article on why that’s the case.
Infinite scroll is not a good idea for what they call “goal-oriented” websites. That is, sites where visitors are trying to find a specific “thing”. For example, if you have a blog about technical topics, that specific “thing” could be an article about, say, how to add infinite scroll to WordPress!
So when is infinite scrolling good?
When you have a website where “each unit of content belongs at the same level of hierarchy and has similar chances of being of interest to users”.
That’s a fancy way of saying that infinite scroll can work well if you have a site where most visitors will be somewhat interested in all of your posts, rather than just a specific post.
That means if you have a blog about a casual, fun topic, infinite scroll can be a great idea. After all, it’s no coincidence that infinite scroll is used by all major social networks such as:
- + more
How To Add Infinite Scroll To WordPress With Jetpack
If you think infinite scroll sounds like a good fit for your blog, the easiest way to add infinite scroll to WordPress is with the Jetpack plugin.
If you’re not familiar, Jetpack is a plugin developed by Automattic that includes a suite of helpful tools, one of them being the infinite scroll.
Here’s how to get started with it:
*Note: There is a small chance that Jetpack infinite scroll won’t work with your theme. While most themes have built-in support, I can’t guarantee that every single theme will work with Jetpack infinite scroll. If you struggle with your theme, this page has some solutions.
Step 1: Install and configure the Jetpack plugin
To get started, you’ll need to install the Jetpack plugin and sync it to your WordPress.com account (if you don’t already have a WordPress.com account, you’ll also need to create one).
Once you install and activate Jetpack, you’ll see an option to Connect to WordPress.com:
Follow the process to either sign in to your WordPress.com account or create a new account. Be sure to Approve access.
Once you do that, Jetpack will show you a pricing page. Don’t worry – you don’t have to pay for the infinite scroll module! Just click the Start with free → button at the bottom:
Jetpack will then take you back to your WordPress dashboard and ask you to Activate recommended features.
If you want those features, feel free to click the button. But if you only want infinite scroll, don’t click it:
Step 2: Activate Jetpack infinite scroll module
Once you’ve set up Jetpack, you need to go in and actually activate the infinite scroll module.
To do that, go to Jetpack → Settings and scroll down to the Theme enhancements section. There, check the box for Load more posts as the reader scrolls down and make sure to SAVE SETTINGS:
Step 3: Configure how infinite scroll works
At this point, infinite scroll should be active on your site already. If you want a little more control, you can configure two more options by going to Settings → Reading:
Leave the Infinite Scroll Behavior box checked. You can then choose whether or not you want it to count as a new Google Analytics page view whenever a user triggers more posts to load.
There’s no “right” answer here – it just depends on how you want to calculate your website’s analytics.
Step 4: Confirm that infinite scroll works on your site
At this point, you should be good to go! All that’s left is to confirm that infinite scroll actually works on your site.
Load your blog archive page and…scroll down! If everything is working properly, your site should automatically load more posts when you reach the bottom of the page.
Advanced: Add Infinite Scroll To WordPress With Ajax Load More
If you want more control over how the infinite scroll on your site functions, you can use the free Ajax Load More plugin.
This plugin is more complicated than Jetpack, so if you’re a beginner I recommend using the method above.
But if you’re comfortable working with some basic PHP code, you’ll have a lot more flexibility using Ajax Load More because it lets you:
- Include/exclude content by post type, taxonomy, search terms, authors, and more
- Customize the template for your content
- Choose when to trigger the infinite scroll to start loading
To use the plugin, you’ll need to:
- Build a content repeater template with PHP (the plugin gives you some templates to help you get started)
- Insert that repeater template into a post/page using the plugin’s shortcode builder
Essentially, you’ll be replacing your regular blog archive page with a page containing an ‘Ajax Load More’ shortcode.
Final Thoughts On WordPress Infinite Scroll
As mentioned earlier, infinite scroll is not the best solution for every single WordPress blog. However, if you blog about a fun topic where visitors will enjoy all the posts that you write, infinite scroll can help to:
- Lower your bounce rate
- Increase the amount of content that your visitors view
For a simple way to add infinite scroll to WordPress, you can use the free Jetpack plugin from Automattic. For more advanced users, consider Ajax Load More – just remember that it is easier to use if you already know a little bit about coding.
I would to hear from you guys now: Have any of you tried adding infinite scroll to your blog? If so, did you see any improvement in your engagement metrics? Use the comment section below to engage.
What are your views on infinite scroll on single wordpress post?
Will it be a good practice to add infinite scroll to load a new post at the bottom if user finished reading the current blog and scrolled all the way to bottom?
@Sahil
For certain blogs where comments doesn’t really matter. Or especially when the blog is news type, infinite scroll on single page is effective to make users stick to the site.
Nice article 😀 I have seen many blogs/websites using this infinite scroll for e.g Motoroids and other automobile blogs. Although it is sometimes an irritating thing for me. Although, Thanks for the informative post. Would try to implement it on my blog in future.
Thanks for that information, I’ve been looking for the infinite scroll matter for a long time but this article solved my problem.Thank you, sir Ji. 🙂
When a news/Viral Post site gets famous, then some people directly land on the homepage. In such cases, the infinite scroll is very helpful. It can also be used in the category pages, that also boost traffic.
But I personally use visual composer for infinite scrolling, because it can do a lot of customization other than just infinite scrolling.
Thank you sir,
My site bounce rate is decrease by 15%
Hello,
Nice article sir for beginner. Infinite scrolling looks cool, i would love to try it, I also want to use infinite scroll down but before this, i didn’t know how to do this but now i can do it. Thanks for sharing.
Nice article Harsh ji for beginner. I learned alot with the help of your blog, Now I also want to use infinite scroll down but before this i didn’t know how to do this but now i can do it. Thanks for sharing.
Sir,
If we don’t have enough content on our site then I guess it will be of no use. Currently, my website is only 3month old with only around 65 posts. In future, I will definitely try this infinite scrolling feature. I have seen many websites with infinite scrolling. That time I used to think did they do it but Now I know the method.
Thanks for sharing such a great article.
Infinite scrolling looks cool, i would love to try it, but is it free?
Hi Harsh,
Jetpack is an amazing plugin which a lot of features. And I was knowing about the Jetpack, but I must say that this post is a must-read for the newbies.
Thanks for sharing.
Have a good week ahead.
Nice article Harsh. I was really want this setting for my blog a time ago but not want to find on the web because of laziness and forgot to search on Google. LOL😂
But this article really help me if I want to setup infinity scroll to my blog.
Infinity scroll really decrease your bounce rate and if you have a lot of interesting articles then readers are stick to your website like Facebook and YouTube.
Thank you for sharing this article!
Ashutosh singh
I think we plan to add infinity scroll to our blog or website if we must know what type blog we have? we know infinity scroll is user friendly for micro blogging sites like twitter, So we like implement to our blog, we must know it will make good result or bad result. My personal opinion, It’s not recommend large articles included blogs, I believe make infinity scroll on blog only depend the content length large or small. thanks harsh for a wonderful topic:)
A very useful thing to Increase the time spent by the user on a Web page.
The more visit time of a user will be the More revenue will be generated.
Hi Harsh,
Personally, I found infinite scrolling to be annoying because I can’t go to the end of the website, check footer, or read comments. Although it can lower the bounce rate, I would not recommend it to niche blogs, as you already mentioned.
News and entertainment website profit the most because when on-site people would love to read more related articles.
Nice article sir for beginner. I also want to use infinite scroll down but before this i didn’t know how to do this but now i can do it. Thanks for sharing.
Nice article @Harsh. No doubt it lowers the bounce rate but you may lose the number of the quality readers if your blog is on blogging or affiliate marketing. If your readers experience infinite scroll inside post, they can get bored after scrolling down and down. It will affect your blog’s branding
Hello Sir,
Great way to explain How to add infinite Scroll page in WordPress, I don’t like infinite scroll page in my and others blog, But I have learned about infinite scroll page whenever I need this I will able to add infinite scroll page in any blog.
Thanks
Pradeep Singh
Yes it really a good feature in the jetpack plugin, I was already aware of that. Jetpack plugin is not working well with my blog, I mean It is working good but If i want to change any settings then it is showing error “there is something wrong” I have deactivate my all plugins and then activate it one by one to find which one causing that problem but did not find any. Even I disconnect my wordpress.com account from the jectpack but the problem is same.
Can Anyone help me in this?
Hey Harsh!
I do like the Infinite Scrolling on some websites.
And you are right, this feature is not for every website or blog site. It depends on what you want to accomplish with the website. If your goal it to make your visitor engage more with your content, then maybe this is a great idea as it will show more content to the visitor as he/she scrolls down. But, if your goal is for the visitor to enter their information for something (email marketing), this might not be a smart idea. Again, using this infinite scroll feature depends on your goals.
I like the Jetpack Plugin because it has many helpful features, as the infinite scroll feature. I also like their commenting system.
Thank you for sharing this helpful tip!
Best regards! 😀
Nice article @Harsh. No doubt it lowers the bounce rate but you may lose the number of the quality readers if your blog is on blogging or affiliate marketing. If your readers experience infinite scroll inside post, they can get bored after scrolling down and down. It will affect your blog’s branding. Coz if you are a blogger or a digital marketer, your content is always king to generate traffic, trust readers, and better revenue.
It totally depends on the niche. The sites you have mentioned in the post are kind of news and tv related website. They generate a huge revenue from display ads. People just read today and forget tomorrow the previous one if there any other viral news.
You can say it’s like a novel and a newspaper. The novel should be cool covered and clean pages with great stories to become a best seller. But a newspaper should be packed with news as possible as they can. To show they have a huge news info.
A similar case will be there in case of infinite scroll in blogging related blog and the news sites you have mentioned.