Have you ever felt that you need a subtitle for your posts and pages? Recently in one of our projects, ThemeLab, we needed to add subtitles to some of our pages. We felt that others might need it as well, so in this article we will show you how to add a secondary alternative title or subtitle in WordPress posts and pages.
Live demo of what it looks like on ThemeLab site:
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Secondary Title plugin. Upon activation, you will automatically see an additional title field below your main title on your post edit screen.
Don’t worry if you only want to use it on pages or another custom post type. The plugin comes with its own configuration options which allow you to fine tune how the secondary titles are displayed in the admin area and in your WordPress themes.
If you want to change those options, then you need to click on Settings » Secondary Title menu in the WordPress admin menu.
On the settings screen, you can choose post types, categories, and/or specific post IDs where you want to display the secondary title. You can also choose the position of the input box on the post editor screen. This will allow you to display the secondary title box above or below the main post title box.
By default the plugin will automatically display secondary titles however you can stop this by choosing No next to Automatic Insert option.
You can manually display secondary titles in your theme by using <?php get_secondary_title(); ?> template tag in your theme files. This will give you maximum control over style.
The default format displays secondary title next to the post title separated by a colon, like this:
The Post Title: The Secondary Title
You can change this by specifying your own format in the Title Format option on the plugin’s settings screen.
This is what it looked like on the default Twenty Thirteen theme.
We hope this article helped you add alternate secondary title or subtitle to posts and pages in WordPress. We also have a tutorial on how to hide title for selective WordPress posts and pages should you need to do that.
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Hi guys,
How can I style just the secondary title?
Please reply…
You can insert inline CSS in Title format input.
If you using the manual method, you can add custom style or class like
Any way to do it manually? I can use a custom metabox for this but I want it like this plugin, next to title. Not bottom of editor with other metaboxes
It appears that the subtitle is inserted into the tag where the main title exists.
This means that styling it can only be done with span tags and inline styles. This causes problems with things like sidebars that list recent posts.
For example, I wanted the subtitle smaller and underneath the main title but font-size: 20px meant that it displayed this size in the sidebar too.
Anyone else experienced this or know of a work around?
No, currently you don’t need to join WPBeginner you can simply use coupon code provided for the hosting to avail the discounts.
Do you have to pay to join “Wpbegginer” ? I see your referrers to hosting says, “wpbegginer users get such & such off”
Depending how you format the secondary title, it will certainly have a little impact on the SEO of the page. Yes you can leave the secondary title blank.
Does the secondary title have any impact on SEO?
Also, I second @disqus_M7pLX0hgAp:disqus’s question.
Secondary Title is a great plugin! And your article was especially helpful re: for secondary title appearing below the primary title. Thanks very much.
Oh wow I just installed this plugin….can’t wait to start using it. It looks awesome. Thanks so much for the heads-up….love this site!!!!
If we have this plugin activated, but don’t need a secondary title can we just leave the secondary title line blank? Will it look different than just the basic title & post without the plugin?
thank you for this article. exactly what I needed. do you know whether the subtitle shows on facebook?