A bit ago we had an episode with host Dave Lockie and Dan Walmsley, Interim Head of Artificial Intelligence at Automattic as they dove into AI, what it means to WordPress and WooCommerce, as well as how the future of AI is perceived within Automattic. Dave asked Dan about the speed of AI and shipping features out whether that be in the next month or the next week or the next year, and probably, at this rate, tomorrow.
Long term, short term, long term test
Dan shared when it comes to contemplating how to shape a feature, he has at least three major considerations. One is over the long term. Is there something foundational about this? Is there something fundamental about this? For example, they worked on this chat feature for Seth Godin’s blog and there’s a few other blogs it’s on too, and there there’s a lot of improvements of that coming down the pike. It was very much a first pass, but Dan believes that chatting with a blog, making it possible for someone to take any knowledge base, whether that’s something they’re curating or it’s a long tale of their blog history and making those recipes, those diary entries, those words of advice or whatever else that you filled your blog with accessible through a chat interface, he believes is a fundamental new both user interface paradigm and a much more powerful way to interact with content than we’ve had in the past.
Every site owner should be able to tune for their own use case
At Automattic, they believe that this is something that every site owner should be able to tune for their own use case. Much like with ChatGPT, how you can plug in tools, what does it look like to plug AI tools into a chat experience powered by a WordPress website? Dan thinks a lot of people are thinking about that and they’re thinking about that too. They just think there’s a huge amount of value. Is there something fundamental, is one question, and then are there many possible different use cases, all the way from a free site up to an enterprise site? Can we imagine that same feature, say chatting with a blog, being useful? Well, yes, if you provide customer support, if you provide advice, if you provide recipes, if you provide stories for kids, those are all different personalities and knowledge bases that can be delivered through exactly the same user interface paradigm and set of tooling. The adaptability of the GPT series of models means that we can use the same stuff to serve all those things, so that’s great.
Does it solve a pain point people have today?
Then in the short term, the question is, and this is the third piece, does it solve a pain point people have today? Is there something missing in their lives? That part is a little harder. He feels like we are in a moment where people aren’t quite sure what this AI thing is for yet or how much to invest in it, but he does think that for many products, people are intrigued by AI and willing to try it as an add-on to something they already know. Oh, you were going to buy the pro plan. Oh, it comes with an AI thing. Well, you are definitely going to get it now and try it out for a week and whatever and see what that’s about because you want to know what AI can do for you and your business.” So we’re in a moment like that, that that’s kind of a bubble where I think that’s going to tip a lot of AI companies’ conversions over the edge in the time being.
Are you actually providing value?
But the long-term test, the long-term tell is are you actually providing value? Do you actually have a moat? Can you be eaten alive by someone else with better data? He thinks at Automattic they have many, many, many possible things they can try that all of which look really, really promising and are based on, again, the reason why they invested in Sync is they asked the question, “Is it fundamental? Does it enable multiple potential use cases and does it scale from simple sites all the way to the enterprise?” And the answer for all three was yes.
Abha Thakor, co-host on my podcast Do the Woo, has been bringing on guests to tell stories since she joined our team. Before she did that, she was a guest herself and took the time to explain why storytelling is such an important part of being a builder.
The reason behind storytelling
I get really exasperated when people tell me in a professional environment, “Oh, we do storytelling” when this storytelling is basically nothing about the person or capturing what it is that it means to them. And it is just a corporately-engineered line. Some corporate blurb that has nothing about the real person or people involved. Storytelling has been around for thousands of years, the only difference is the tools that we use. A story, to be effective, has to have certain components to help people understand that story, to reach others, and for them to be moved or inspired by that story.
That doesn’t mean that they should create stuff that’s not there. This is one of the things that I would really say to WooCommerce businesses, please don’t create stories that aren’t true. If you change people’s stories or what they share in reviews to fit your corporate brief or what you’re trying to sell, they will come back about it and they will not work with you again. They will also be a lost customer.
And actually, you don’t need to approach it like that because the story they’ve told you is the one which will inspire somebody else. Storytelling needs to be something that is positive, it needs to have an integrity to it. It also needs to avoid being translated into words that actually people will not understand. People don’t relate to that, people relate to people.
What storytelling means to a product builder
The best stories are often going to be the people who write to you and give you a particularly strong review, saying why it made a difference. Now, don’t just use their review and run it as a promotion with all your branding around it. Talk to the person. Because talking to the person will give you more of the context of that story. That story itself is likely to be more powerful. You have empowered the person and the customer, you’ve made them feel valued, which is important because this customer has taken time to contact you. It is often so easy to give a negative review. In our culture, sadly, people will not jump to pay a compliment. Value that customer who does and help them share their story.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a really good example. They are a charity in the UK and Ireland, and like many other organizations, they monitor what is happening. They monitor what is being said. But they don’t just take it, reproduce them and say, “Hey, this is all about us.” What they do is actually something that is the same for what you would do for a product.
It’s, “Let’s talk to this person, let’s see what the context is. Let’s see what else they might want to say.” It may be that they want to share more. If you don’t have the conversation, you could have just missed out on the best story, something that will not only interest your audience, but will also motivate your team or staff.
Stories can also come from other sources and interactions with your customers. Encourage your team to look out for how to help build your community.
The story brings trust for newcomers to WooCommerce
We often say to one of the WooCommerce agencies we work with, “Okay, if you are working with a charity or you are sponsoring something because you passionately believe in it, what are you want to say about that?” And not from the perspective of making money off that charity or making money off that cause. But what is it that is part of your story? Because actually telling your story is more than telling the public that you sponsored something.
And I’ve seen it with WooCommerce builders. I’ve dealt with a couple of sites recently that they’ve sent me. [These sites in their version of stories] literally talked about what they had in their toothpaste and when they brushed their teeth, what came out of their teeth. And “Why would people want to know this?”
It was because the teams looked at social media where people talked about breakfast and things like that. They didn’t know where to start, so, that’s what they did too. I have got permission to re-tell that story because the team there said, “Someone should have told us this.”
But it’s telling your story and telling what you are comfortable with sharing. I’m one of the editors of the People of WordPress series. And we’ve interviewed lots of people who are from e-commerce, but hear them say, “Okay, what are you happy to be reading about yourself? What are you going to be happy about someone talking to you about? Is really important and that’s for any person.
It’s about being listened to and heard
And that’s the joy for me, coming from a PR background where I’m a Chartered PR Practitioner and that’s a lot about actually thinking about the ethics of communication and how we deal with things in a positive way and how we involve people. We don’t do communications to them, we create or we do communications together because it’s about being listened to and being heard. And helping people be listened to and heard is the greatest way to do that.
We talk about ownership a lot. So if I was talking to you as a product developer, I would say, “Okay, share a little bit about what that means in terms of why it’s special to you, how and why it excites you,” because that is your story. And that may be what you invite other people to share as well.
For example, with the boats work that we do, we ask the captains to share what it is that they love about taking people on these wonderful excursions. And it becomes much more than this e-commerce thing that you’re supposed to do. It becomes a living and breathing part of your business and part of your organization. And that is when business really innovates, it’s when you get fantastic solutions, it’s where you meet and collaborate with other people. And more importantly, you get to meet exciting customers that makes day with you for the rest of your business career. And that’s the people that you want to be at your party when you retire. So, it’s bringing that locality back to you, really.
Here’s a tip for all WordPress and WooCommerce builders out there, who want to contribute with their own unique skill set: Don’t underestimate the power of effective communication.
Whether you’re participating in a chat, leaving comments, or attending in-person events like WordCamps or meetups, it’s essential to remember that your words can have a tremendous impact. Words can hurt or heal. Clear and respectful communication can foster better understanding, collaboration, and innovation within the community. It can help you network, learn, and grow, even if you’re not a coder.
And when it comes to experiences as a woman in this field, particularly about navigating and communicating in a traditionally male-dominated environment, here’s a small takeaway: Use your unique perspective to contribute to the conversation. Don’t shy away from asking questions or sharing your insights. The WordPress community is incredibly diverse, and your voice matters.
It has occurred to me that I have this site here and over on Do the Woo I have some massive content. When I say massive, I mean transcripts of podcasts where professionals have shared hundreds, if not thousands of tips.
Each single show it filled with them.
So, what to do? Oh, maybe I should start reposting them here. And by that, I mean with a bit of editing there could be some very useful, and short posts that will help most anyone who builds with WordPress or WooCommerce, no matter the level. Heck maybe even some nuggets for users.
It’s like I’m going back in time LOL.
Do you feel like I’m asking you for your thoughts. Well it so happens that I have opened comments here, and that should give you some indication that I am happy to hear from you.
Will your thoughts drive me to where I should do this or not. Nope. Decision made and soon you will start seeing those tips with kudos to the proper peeps in the community.
But don’t worry, I will still write about podcasting, blogging, community and other various topics that seem to always be on my mind.
And why stop there? Maybe I will drop in some other things I think of along the way. Stuff I pick up in the community. Not really news, but maybe something I would like to highlight.
Because, hey, over on Do the Woo I work hard to elevate the voices. Might as well do the same here.
It has occurred to me that I have this site here and over on Do the Woo I have some massive content. When I say massive, I mean transcripts of podcasts where professionals have shared hundreds, if not thousands of tips.
Each single show it filled with them.
So, what to do? Oh, maybe I should start reposting them here. And by that, I mean with a bit of editing there could be some very useful, and short posts that will help most anyone who builds with WordPress or WooCommerce, no matter the level. Heck maybe even some nuggets for users.
It’s like I’m going back in time LOL.
Do you feel like I’m asking you for your thoughts. Well it so happens that I have opened comments here, and that should give you some indication that I am happy to hear from you.
Will your thoughts drive me to where I should do this or not. Nope. Decision made and soon you will start seeing those tips with kudos to the proper peeps in the community.
But don’t worry, I will still write about podcasting, blogging, community and other various topics that seem to always be on my mind.
For the record, the key words here are tips. These are not going to be tutorials, product reviews or WordPress news. Simply nuggets from other smart peeps in the space.
And why stop there? Maybe I will drop in some other things I think of along the way. Stuff I pick up in the community. Not really news, but maybe something I would like to highlight.
Because, hey, over on Do the Woo I work hard to elevate the voices. Might as well do the same here.
A Table of Contents in WordPress can be an effective addition to your website pages or posts. They are great for boosting user experience and for navigating long-form copy. Plus, they provide a slight advantage in SEO.
In this article, we’ll show you step-by-step how to add a table of contents to your WordPress site easily with a plugin. And, we’ll show you the simple steps needed to create one from scratch. So, if you’re here for a table of contents for WordPress, this post has what you need.
A WordPress table of contents is basically a list of the main headings or topics covered throughout the content of a page or post. They are great for giving users an overview of what’s to come. Typically, they are placed at the top of a page, just after the title or introductory paragraph.
Usually, a table of contents consists of a list of anchor links (or jump links) to the corresponding headings on the page. When clicked, anchor links jump or scroll down to the corresponding heading where the content will be found. This makes it easy for visitors to navigate the page.
The Benefits of Creating a Table of Contents in WordPress?
If you’re a business owner or blogger using WordPress, user experience and search engine optimization(SEO) are always going to be important. Using a WordPress table of contents on your site can help with both.
User Experience
A table of contents can be extremely beneficial to user experience. It allows visitors to quickly and easily orient themselves to the information available in the content.
Plus, because they contain anchor links, visitors can easily jump to the information they are looking for without so much scrolling. This can save a lot of time when there is a lot of content. We even use them on our Elegant Themes Blog for long guides such as ultimate guide to Divi Speed Optimization.
SEO Value
Having a table of contents can give your page a boost on SERPs by giving you an enriched search result. This can include additional links to your most popular page sections featured directly on your search result.
Plus, they help search engines understand the crawling context of your page which can lead to improved indexing or featured snippets. By creating well-organized content with a table of contents, you give Google and other search engines a clear understanding of your content.
How to Automatically Add a Table of Contents in WordPress Using a Plugin
Creating a table of contents in WordPress using a plugin is by far the easiest way to go. And there are no shortage of plugins in the WordPress repository that help create an site-wide Table of Contents for your posts and pages and generate anchor links automatically.
For this post, we’ll be using Easy Table of Contents WordPress plugin to create a our table of contents.
1. Install and Activate the Plugin
To get started, go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugin > Add New. Search for the Easy Table of Contents plugin and click to install and activate it.
2. Check a Post to See It Working
Once you install and activate the plugin, Easy Table of Contents immediately creates a table of contents section on your posts. As soon as it is activated on your site, you can navigate to the front end and see the table it created on your posts.
3. Customize Your Table of Contents Site-Wide Settings
After seeing what the plugin does out of the box, you can visit the plugin’s settings and tailor them to your needs. To go to the settings, navigate to Settings > Table of Contents.
For most people, enabling the table of contents to show up on posts is probably all you’ll need. Pages are a different story. If you have landing pages that are specifically designed as top-level pages, you should uncheck showing a table of contents on your pages (keep posts checked).
Further, you’ll see that Easy TOC recognizes all your custom post types and various templates which you can toggle on/off for.
There are also a host of other options for you to try out, but that is all dependent on your website and needs. Most websites will only need to use H2, H3, or H4 headings in their table of contents. Too many items in a table of contents will clutter up your content and be less helpful than not having a table of contents at all.
4. Override Site-Wide Settings for Individual Posts
Aside from the site-wide settings, Easy Table of Contents gives you post-by-post control over the table of contents. However, to enable Easy Table of Contents individual post settings in the Block Editor, you have to enable Custom Fields in the block editor’s preferences section.
To do this click on the Gear Icon in the top right to see Page Settings. Of those settings, click on “Preferences”.
This will open up a modal in the center of your screen. Click on the “Panels” tab. Then, Toggle on the “Custom Fields” option. This will allow any plugin or theme setting that adds custom fields to your pages/posts to display those settings underneath the block editor.
You can disable the table of contents from showing up on the posts page and adjust other settings that only affect that one page. This is perfect for special use cases that differ from your site-wide settings.
To disable the Table of Contents section from a particular post/page, scroll down to the plugin settings (after you’ve enabled custom fields).
Checkmark the box for “Disable the automatic insertion of the table of contents.”
This removes the table of contents that would automatically be inserted via plugin settings.
That’s it!
Other Table of Contents Plugins for WordPress
Aside from Easy Table of Contents, there are plenty of other Table of Contents plugins that could serve you well. There are some great free plugins like LuckyWP Table of Contents that work great with WordPress blocks and page builders like Divi. And there are premium plugins like Fixed TOC that have all the advanced features one would need. Do your research and test a few out to get the best features that fit your needs.
In general, look for the ones that are easy to use out of the box, have built-in support for schema markup, and have decent styling options. Here are the best Table of Contents plugins for WordPress that we recommend.
How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress Manually
Creating a table of contents from scratch using the WordPress Editor can be useful for users who only need one for a few posts or pages and don’t need the site-wide functionality of a plugin. And creating one is fairly simple (and kinda fun) once you understand the concept.
A table of contents is basically a list of anchor links that jump to specified sections or headings of a page. So, if you’ve created an anchor link on a page or in a navigation menu before, you are already familiar with the basics of creating a table of contents. If your not familiar with anchor links (or jump links), we have a complete guide on how to create anchor links in WordPress.
Here’s how to create a table of contents from scratch on a WordPress post:
1. Create Your List of Headings for Your Table of Contents
At the top of your page or post, create a list of all the headings for your table of contents using a paragraph block (or list block). To do this, create a new paragraph block (or list block) and add the heading text that corresponds to the headings on your page content below. Make sure there is a line break after each heading text.
Once done, make sure to check that the heading text in the table of contents matches the heading text in the content for a better user experience.
2. Add a Unique HTML Anchor ID to Each Heading on Your Page or Post
Next, go through the content on your page (heading by heading) and assign each heading a unique HTML anchor ID.
To do this, go to a heading block and click on its settings.
After that, in the heading block settings (in the “Advanced” tab of the heading block), add an HTML Anchor ID to the field. For this example, the anchor HTML anchor is “heading-one”. This anchor ID will be used as the anchor link target.
3. Convert Each Heading in Your Table of Contents Into an Anchor Link
Once the ID for the heading element is set, we can go back up to our paragraph or list block that contains our table of contents. One by one, highlight each line and click the “Link” icon to add a link.
Instead of a web address, add a pound sign or hashtag (#) plus our anchor ID. Press enter and the link will apply to that text.
For our example, we added “#heading-one” for our anchor link. Your anchor link text should be descriptive but concise. But it should also accurately summarize the content that is within that section so search engines can read it.
Most importantly, your anchor link needs to be unique and not used elsewhere on the page. This is because using the same HTML Anchor ID will confuse the browser and not work as intended.
Once you are done, save your changes and preview your page. Test your new Table of Contents by clicking the anchor links to make sure they are all jumping to the right places. If those links aren’t working, you may have left out or misplaced the “#” or your Anchor IDs and Anchor Link URLs aren’t an exact match.
Creating a Table of Contents in Divi
Divi Theme Builder is one of the most robust and easy-to-use tools for WordPress websites. It allows website creators, business owners, and marketers to create stunning websites that are feature rich.
Using the default WordPress editor to create a table of contents is pretty limiting, especially when it comes to design. Divi makes it so much easier to create unique table of contents designs and add smooth scrolling anchor links to any element on the page or post without having to know HTML or CSS.
We have a full write-up for how to build out a Table of Contents section for your blog. Not only can you find the how-to steps, but there is also a free layout download for you. The layout is for you if you’re looking for a faster solution with the Divi Theme.
This plugin includes a unique Table of Contents Module for Divi that automatically generates your lists, anchor links, and all the functionality you need in a few clicks. You can use the module on a theme builder template to add table of contents automatically for all your blog posts! Plus the module has hundreds of customization settings and style options.
If you are interested in other solutions for adding a table of contents in WordPress, here are some others that you may not be aware of that are worth considering.
Wait for a Built-In Table of Contents Block in WordPress Core
If you have time to wait for a table of Contents solution, it seems a Table of Contents WordPress block is in the works. And, there is a lot of recent traction on the project that you can view on the Github Pull and in an issues dialogue. It looks like a promising block that will bring table of contents natively into WordPress’ block editor.
However, there are bumps in the roadmap so it is a toss-up whether or not it will make WordPress 6.1 or be in a later release.
Check for a Table of Contents Feature in Plugins You May Already Use
With all the robust plugins out there. Who knows? There is a decent chance that maybe you’re using a plugin currently that has a table of contents feature hidden in the details. Here are a couple of popular plugins you may already use that offer the ability to create a table of contents in WordPress.
SEO Yoast Premium
If you’re using the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, you may be wondering what the Table of Contents block is and how it can help you. The Table of Contents block is a premium feature that allows you to dynamically create a table of contents for your post or page. The best part is that if you already use Yoast SEO Premium, you have an easy TOC solution.
Spectra
Another plugin many people use is Spectra. Spectra has been gaining popularity as an enhancement of the built-in block editor for WordPress.
One of the blocks included in Spectra is an easy to use Table of Contents block. The block has full design customizability and is deployable with no additional coding. As you can see, add the block to your post and adjust the settings. You’ll have a table of contents in a few seconds. Spectra does come in a free and premium version.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating a table of contents in WordPress is easy and can be done in a few steps. By using a plugin, you can automatically generate a table of contents for your pages and post. Or, you can manually create a table of contents in the default WordPress editor or in a page builder like Divi for more design settings. Either way, you have the power to customize your website to afford your site visitors a better user experience and be seen better in search results.
Do you use a table of contents on your WordPress site? Do you have a favorite plugin you use? Let us know in the comments!
