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Using Asides

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Got something to say on your blog, but don’t think it is enough to be worth a full post?

Why not use the Aside format for your post?

If you are using a theme that supports them, Asides, are an ideal way to add a short post to your site almost like a status update on Facebook.

What is an aside? Well when you have something to say that is not part of the main conversation you may lean in towards somebody to make your comment, it doesn’t need a big announcement as it is not part of the main conversation, just a quick comment between you and someone else, that isn’t private so it doesn’t matter if it is overheard.

Asides on WordPress are the equivalent of this, they are a post, just like any other but they are designed to be short. For example, say that the day your bins get collected has changed, you have written about this before and all the residents know, but you just feel you need to remind them? Well  as you have written about this already you dan’t need to write a lot maybe just a few words like

Don’t forget bin collections have changed this week and  it’s bin day tomorrow..

If you did this as a post it would look a bit sad, people would click on it expecting more. If you were to do this using the Aside format for your post, it would publish to the front page just the same as any other post but crucially without a title, so there is nothing for your readers to click to ‘see more’

How to use Asides.

Well it really couldn’t be simpler.  Go to the post page, and create your Aside just as you would if it were a normal post, remember don’t make it too long, no more than a couple of lines, if you have your front page set to show summary rather than full posts, then it needs to be less than 55 words.

once you have created your post before you save or publish it look on the right hand side bar you will see an option called format.

In the format section there are 3 options.

  • Standard
  • Aside
  • Gallery
Select ‘Aside’ here and press publish. When you go to the front page of your site you will see, your post published as normal but it will be missing one thing, the title which is the hyperlink to read the full post, as this is not a full post you don’t need that link. People can still leave and read comments by using the links below the aside post as normal.

And that is how to use the Aside feature in your wordpress.com blog. This will also work on self hosted blogs as long as your theme supports the aside feature. If your theme doesn’t support asides then the Format area of the right sidebar will not show.

If you really do want to use Asides on your self hosted WordPress blog with a theme that doesn’t support them, then have a look at the plugin repository there are a number of plugins that will add this functionality to any theme.

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