There is no denying the look at the side of the page on WordPress that shows the past posts and pages. Anyone that does not know that a site is created in WordPress can look over and see archived posts tree and know in a flash that there are on a WordPress site.
There are many themes that alter the way that the archived posts will look, but sometimes you just want to work with the archive tree and nothing else. The only way that people are going to fully enjoy your website is if they can find their way around. Everyone has seen a WordPress blog that has a good cover story and then nothing but a bunch of dates off to the side as their “archives”. Why would anyone click those dates without even knowing what those blog entries are about?
Clean My Archives
The name of this plugin is a little deceptive. It does not clean up past posts or archives, but rather gives you some nice shortcodes that will allow you to place archived posts almost anywhere in your site. You can create an archived posts page or simply make a new post once per month that lists the best posts of the past month or however you want to use this plugin.
You set the pace of the archives and how you want to display them. You can use this to create a page of past post and then remove the tree from the side menu. That is what we have seen a great number of people do and it works out very nicely. You can even clear that entire side menu with a little work and give the site and whole new look.
Snazzy Archives
We really like the look that this plugin gives to your old posts. It has to be seen to be understood. It works best when each post has at least one image associated with it. That is really just a good way to put together the site anyway. No one wants to go to a site that is nothing but reading and no pictures to break up the text. Once your posts are nice and pretty, then the plugin comes into its own. It has a look that is something like a calendar. You just have to try it to believe it.
There is no real organization per se, but it is a beautiful look that will keep your visitors clicking from one post to the next. We have not tried combining this plugin with a related posts plugin, that may be a very nice effect and we suggest that you give it a shot as we have listed some great plugins that gather related posts easier.
