Silo Widgets Plugin For WordPress

The Silo Widgets plugin for WordPress introduces three widgets:

1. A Silo Pages widget, which outputs what amounts to an automatically generated navigation menu for your static pages. It is the Silo Pages widget that creates the hierarchy of pages under Browse Site in the sidebar panel of this page as shown below.

Silo Pages

Benefit: creates a visual hierarchy which helps human visitor navigation.

Method: Drag the Silo Pages widget into the required panel location. Edit the widget in 2 ways. Give it your own Title e.g. Pages or Browse.. as in the screenshot;

Silo Pages Widget

..and click on Edit to open up the widget and edit the Contexts i.e. the posts and pages on which you wish the widget to appear.

Contexts

2. A Silo Stub widget, which you can use as an inline widget when you'd like to automatically generate the contents of a page whose only purpose is to link to its children, e.g. this site's software page.

Benefit: Fast creation of intermediary pages useful for user navigation.

Method: The software page was created including all of its content by simply creating the page and adding the inline widget. All the content is added automatically by the Silo Stub widget.

Silo Stub Page

Selecting the widget will include it in the page where it appears as a grey box. However, the content is only visible on the published page.

Silo Widget

Then add the 'child' pages using Add New pages, specify the parent page in the right hand side bar and publish:

Specify Parent

By default, the widget places the page title of the child page as a link in the parent page. You can add additional information to be shown by completing the 'This Page in Widgets' function when creating the child page.

This Page In Widgets is one of the functions found directly below the editor. You can drag and drop these functions into the position most convenient for your own use by clicking on the grey bar and dragging.

This Page in Widgets

Finally, you can exclude the page being shown in lists such as Pages, Silo Pages etc by checking one of the Exclude boxes at the bottom. For example, you may have Thank You or product download pages that you do not want to show in the navigation.

Parent/child relationships created by stub pages can be nested without theoretical limit.  However, ensure that you are not using a Permalink structure beginning with %postname%, %author%, %category% or %tag%.  Note the Semiologic recommended Permalink structure:

Recommended Permalink structure

3. A Silo Map widget, which you can use as an inline widget to automatically output a full site map of your site; e.g. this site's site map page.

Benefit: Saves time by creating the sitemap automatically. You can use the sitemap page both for visitor navigation and for the search engines. The sitemap is updated automatically whenever you add or delete pages.

Method: Add a new page with title 'Sitemap' (or any other title you choose). Add the Silo Map widget:

Silo Map

If you intend to use the Sitemap page useful for visitors then don't forget to make the page obvious by including it in one of your Navigation menus.

All three come in handy when creating silo structured web sites.

Download

This is an exclusive plugin for Semiologic Pro users.