How to Add Infinite Scroll to Your WordPress Site (Step by Step)

Do you want to add infinite scroll to your WordPress blog?

Infinite scroll automatically loads the content from your next page, so visitors don’t have to click on pagination links or the load more button at the bottom of the page.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add infinite scroll on your WordPress blog, step by step.

Why Add Infinite Scroll to Your WordPress Site?

When visitors scroll through your content, they’ll eventually come to a set of links at the bottom of the page that allows them to explore newer or older content.

This requires the visitor to click on a link and wait for the next page to load, which isn’t a great user experience.

Instead, you may want to use infinite scroll.

This is a web design trend that uses AJAX page load technology to automatically load the next page of content and show it at the end of the current page. The content loads continuously and infinitely as the user keeps scrolling.

Infinite scroll offers a smoother browsing experience, and makes it easier for visitors to explore your content. This can increase your pageviews and reduce your bounce rate.

Infinite scroll is particularly good for content that’s presented in a timeline or feed. For example, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all use infinite scroll.

However, it’s important to realize that some websites are easier to navigate without infinite scroll, such as web directories where each page is a different letter of the alphabet.

If you use infinite scroll, then you won’t be able to show a footer on your WordPress blog which may be a problem for some website owners.

Infinite scroll can also put your server under pressure. With that being said, we recommend using managed WordPress hosting if you’re looking to try infinite scrolling.

With that being said, let’s have a look at how to add infinite scroll to your WordPress site.

Method 1: Adding Infinite Scroll with Catch Infinite Scroll (Recommended Method)

The easiest way to add infinite scrolling to your WordPress website is by using the Catch Infinite Scroll plugin.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Catch Infinite Scroll plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll see a new menu item labeled ‘Catch Infinite Scroll’ in your WordPress dashboard. Simply give it a click to configure the plugin settings.

We want to trigger infinite scroll when the user starts scrolling down the page.

With that in mind, open the Load On dropdown and choose ‘Scroll.’

If you choose ‘Click,’ then Catch Infinite Scroll will show a ‘Load More’ button instead.

Next, you can see the navigation selector, next selector, content selector, and item selector. The default settings work quite well, so you don’t need to make any changes.

The ‘Image’ section shows the content loader icon that Infinite Scroll will display when it’s loading content.

By default, it uses a loader GIF image but you can change this if you want. Simply click on ‘Upload’ and then either choose an image from the media library or upload a new file.

When you’ve happy with how infinite scrolling is set up, click on the Save Changes button to store your changes.

Now, if you visit your blog you’ll see the infinite scrolling in action.

Method 2: Adding Infinite Scroll with YITH Infinite Scrolling (Easy)

If you’re looking for a simple alternative with no settings to configure, then you may want to try YITH Infinite Scrolling.

This plugin works out of the box, so you can simply install and activate it to add infinite scrolling to your WordPress website. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can visit your website to see the new infinite scroll feature in action.

If you do want to tweak the infinite scroll, then you’ll find a few simple settings by going to YITH » Infinite Scrolling in your WordPress dashboard.

Method 3: Adding Infinite Scroll with Ajax Load More (Advanced)

Ajax Load More has an advanced interface with lots of different options including a repeater template, shortcode builder, and WordPress queries.

The plugin also offers more customization settings, including many page loading icon styles and button styles. With that in mind, it has a steeper learning curve and isn’t recommended for beginners. However, it does give more advanced users complete control over their website’s infinite scroll.

For a detailed guide, you can see our tutorial on creating a load more posts button in WordPress using the Ajax Load More plugin.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add infinite scroll to your WordPress site. You may also want to learn how to increase your blog traffic, or check out our tips to speed up your WordPress site.

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