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How to Add Infinite Scroll Function to a WordPress Website?

Home Blog Blogging How to Add Infinite Scroll Function to a WordPress Website?
how to add infinite scroll
Keeping website visitors on your pages for a longer period can be a challenge. With numerous options available for content and entertainment online, sometimes it may get overwhelming to think of ideas to make your website stand out.   However, the good news is – there are tools and additional functionalities available for WordPress that can help you in retaining visitors. And one such excellent option is the ‘infinite scroll’ function. It automatically loads the content of the next page to save your visitors from having to click on the load more button or pagination links at the bottom of the page.  

Why add an infinite scroll function to your WordPress? 

Infinite scrolls offer a smooth browsing experience.   When your website visitors go to the blog section and scroll through the content, they’ll come to a set of links at the bottom of the page that lets them see older or newer content.   If you use Twitter or Facebook, then you know how the content loads endlessly on your timeline. Infinite scroll is perfect for the content that is presented in a feed or timeline, mobile and other touch devices.   However, the infinite scroll function may not be helpful for every website because: 
  • Some websites are easier to navigate without the infinite scroll 
  • It won’t be possible for you to display a footer 
  • In some cases, it might even crash or slow down smaller blogs 
Therefore, it is recommended to use managed WordPress Hosting if you want to try infinite scrolling.   Now let’s see how you can add infinite scrolling to your website using a WordPress theme as well as plugins.  

Adding infinite scroll using WordPress theme (Neve)  

Neve is a free WordPress theme that offers an infinite scroll function. It is an ideal solution to enable infinite scroll on your blog listing page (or any other archive page). 

You can enable infinite scroll using Neve in a few simple steps: 

  • Install and activate the Neve theme on your WordPress website  
  • Navigate to Appearance > Customize > Layout > Blog / Archive. 
  • Scroll down and go to the Ordering and Content options and select ‘Infinite Scroll’ under Post Pagination 
  • Hit the Publish button and save your settings 
However, if you want to enable the infinite scroll option on individual pages or posts, you’ll have to use a plugin. Meaning, when a visitor opens the full blog post page and scrolls down, you want your website to load another full post.  In the succeeding section, we’ll take you through two popular plugins you can use to implement infinite scrolling. 

Plugin options to implement infinite scrolling 

1. Catch Infinite Scroll 

Catch infinite scroll is a free and easy-to-use plugin that allows you to display the content of your website horizontally on a single page. If you want to change the trigger to click instead of scrolling, it will automatically add a ‘Load more’ button on your website.  Customization is possible, and you can even change the load image as well as the color, font family and font size of the ‘Load more’ button, among other things.  To use this plugin, you just need to install and activate the plugin on your website and you’re good to go.  Please note: To be able to change the font family, font size and colour, you’d need the paid version. 

2. Ajax Load More  

Though Ajax Load More is a complicated plugin to set up, it allows you to enable infinite scroll besides options like repeater templates, AJAX filtering, custom inquiries, shortcode builder, etc.  While you need not be a developer to use this plugin, beginners may prefer sticking to a different plugin because you will have to deal with terms like “repeater templates” and “query parameters”.  However, the trade-off for that added complexity is that you get a lot of options for customizing and configuring the infinite scroll behaviour on your website. So, if you want to infinite scroll everything on your websites, like posts, pages, comments and more, this could be a good option to consider.   Last but not the least, you’ll want to ensure your web hosting provider can handle the users who will scroll continuously, therefore, needing your server to keep loading the content.   For that, you need a robust managed WordPress Hosting solution. WP Pro from Bluehost, designed to ensure that WordPress websites load quicker than on traditional web hosting services, features SSDs and a lower server density, which means fewer customers per server to optimize the load times.    
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