One of the lesser known features in WordPress 2.7 is the ability to make a “sticky” post. In essence, you can choose any one of the posts from your blog and always have it displayed at the top of the page until you choose to no longer designate it as “sticky.” Also, it is possible to designate several posts as stickies, and these will still appear in reverse chronological order.

When it comes to many of the forums on the Internet, having “sticky” threads can come in very handy. This way, the same questions are asked over and over again, because a FAQ thread can be stuck at the top of the forum. The same can be used with a WordPress-based blog, should you choose to use this functionality.

One possible reason why you may choose NOT to use sticky posts is that it may give readers the impression that you are not updating your blog. When they arrive on your site, they see the same post at the top of the page and given the reverse chronological listing of blog posts, they’ll assume that everything beneath it is older. At the same time, there may be a certain post that you want to highlight or feature and the “sticky” function may be handy for a short period of time.

To designate a blog post as sticky, go into the Edit Post section of the WordPress dashboard. In the “Publish” area on the top-right, you’ll see a section called Visibility. This is set to Public by default, but you can also make a post Private or Password Protected should you choose to do so. Clicking on the “Edit” link, you’ll find that there is also a checkbox under Public marked “Stick this post to the front page.” That’s the sticky post feature.

What do you think? Would you ever use “sticky” for one of your posts? To highlight a contest or two, perhaps?