If you have a rich WordPress site, you’ll need a way to keep all of your content organized so that users can find what they’re looking for easily. While you can have a graphic designer create this robust feature for you, you can easily do it yourself with a special plugin.
These plugins help make your website’s navigation more user-friendly, which is a huge plus when it comes to SEO and search engine rankings. Every website should be user-friendly and use this plugin is a great way to achieve this goal.
Also, using a table of contents plugin for your website can be a very effective way of conveying information to readers that visit your site. WordPress doesn’t have an in-built function for this.
As a company, brand or blogger that uses WordPress for their site, using a table of contents plugin will boost search rankings and improve the user experience. Just like a book has a table of contents, your website needs one, too.
This is especially true if your website is filled with lots of content, which can be quite hard to navigate with no map. Plugins are the easiest way to help users know where to look for content and improve their rankings.
Know not all table of contents plugins are effective. Some work better than others and you’ll only want the best for your website, so here are some great options:
Originally Published Jan 18 2019, updated Mar 05 2023
1. Easy Table of Contents
Total downloads: 300,000+
Five Star Ratings: 150+
A user-friendly, featured-focused plugin that allows you to insert a table of contents into your posts, pages, and custom post types.
Features:
- Automatically generate a table of contents for your posts, pages and custom post types by parsing its contents for headers.
- Optionally enable for pages and/or posts. Custom post types are supported, as long as their content is output with the
the_content()template tag. - Optionally auto insert the table of contents into the page, selectable by enabled post type.
- Provides many easy to understand options to configure when and where to insert the table of contents.
- Many options are available to configure how the inserted table of contents appears which include several builtin themes. If the supplied themes do no meet you needs, you can create your own by choosing you own colors for the border, background and link color.
- Multiple counter bullet formats to choose from; none, decimal, numeric and roman.
- Choose to display the table of contents hierarchical or not. This means headings of lower priority will be nested under headings of higher priority.
- User can optionally hide the table of contents. You full control of this feature. It can be disabled and you can choose to have it hidden by default.
- Supports smooth scrolling.
- Selectively enable or disabled the table of contents on a post by post basis.
- Choose which headings are used to generate the table of contents. This too can be set on a post by post basis.
- Easily exclude headers globally and on a post by post basis.
- If you rather not insert the table of contents in the post content, you can use the supplied widget and place the table of contents in your theme’s sidebar.
- The widgets supports being affixed or stuck on the page so it is always visible as you scroll down the page. NOTE: this is an advanced option since every theme is different, you might need support from your theme developer to learn what the correct item selector to use in the settings to enable this feature.
- The widget auto highlights the sections currently visible on the page. The highlight color is configurable.
2. Table of Contents Plus
Total downloads: 300,000+
Five Star Ratings: 110+
A powerful yet user friendly plugin that automatically creates a context specific index or table of contents (TOC) for long pages (and custom post types).
More than just a table of contents plugin, this plugin can also output a sitemap listing pages and/or categories across your entire site.
Includes an administration options panel where you can customise settings like display position, define the minimum number of headings before an index is displayed, other appearance, and more.
For power users, expand the advanced options to further tweak its behaviour – eg: exclude undesired heading levels like h5 and h6 from being included; disable the output of the included CSS file; adjust the top offset and more. Using shortcodes, you can override default behaviour such as special exclusions on a specific page or even to hide the table of contents altogether.
Easy to implement using shortcodes or as a widget.
3. LuckyWP Table of Contents
Total downloads: 100,000+
Five Star Ratings: 750+
A highly customizable, SEO-friendly table of contents plugin with Gutenberg, Smooth Scroll, and Auto Insertion support.
Full Features:
- Automatical insertion a table of contents (configure post types and position).
- SEO-friendly: table of contents code is ready to use by Google for snippets on result page.
- Insert by shortcode, Gutenberg block or widget.
- Button on toolbar of the classic editor.
- Gutenberg block into “Common Blocks”.
- Setting the minimum number of headings to display table of contents.
- Setting the depth of headings for table of contents.
- Skip headings by level or text.
- Hierarchical or linear view.
- Numeration items: decimal or roman numbers in order or nested.
- Customizable appearance: width, float, title font size and weight, items font size, colors.
- Color schemes (dark, light, white, transparent, inherit from theme) and the ability to override colors.
- Toggle Show/Hide (optionally)
- Customizable labels.
- Smooth scroll (optionally).
- Setting offset top for smooth scroll.
- Wrap table of contents with <!–noindex–> tag (optionally).
- Pretty hash in URL
- RTL support.
- Available override global settings for a particular post.
- Highly compatible with WordPress themes and plugins.
4. Rich Table of Contents
Total downloads: 30,000+
Five Star Ratings: 10+
A table of contents generation plugin from Japan that allows anyone to easily create a table of contents. Equipped with the functions of the conventional table of contents plugin, it is designed to thoroughly pursue design and ease of use.
5. SimpleTOC
Total downloads: 10,000+
Five Star Ratings: 40+
A simple TOC block that allows you to automatically generate an SEO-friendly table of contents in the Gutenberg editor.
The plugin loops through your existing content and automatically generate hierarchical HTML lists from heading elements found within your post/article.
6. Heroic Table of Contents
Total downloads: 6,000+
Five Star Ratings: 8+
Heroic Table of Contents is the easiest way to add a Table of Contents to your site.
A contents or index section allows readers to easily navigate pages on your site. The Heroic Table of Contents block automatically detects headings on a page, 4 built-in-styles, options for display and more.
Features:
- Add a contents section to pages in seconds.
- Choose from 4 pre-made Table of Contents styles.
- Hide and relabel headings without altering the original content.
- Choose which headings to display in the Table of Contents.
- Expand and collapse the content section.
- Place the contents section anywhere.
- Choose bulleted, numbered or plain lists
- Use multiple Table of Contents blocks to break up and sub-index lengthy content.
- Mobile friendly
- SEO friendly
7. Table Of Contents Block
Total downloads: 4,000+
Five Star Ratings: 6+
A roadmap for your whole content and helps your readers to locate specific parts of the page to go directly to that section. Using the Table of Contents Block (TOC), you can improve the reading experience, accessibility, and page SEO score & help your visitors to easily navigate.
You don’t need any coding to create TOC in Gutenberg. Just install this block plugin & use Table of Content within Block Editor for WordPress.
Final Thoughts:
Even if your website is filled with lots of content, it’s still a good idea to have a table of contents plugin on it. Plugins are easy to install and simple to maintain so you’ll be able to do the implementation yourself. Always look for a powerful yet user-friendly table of contents plugin that will help your readers navigate your website!
