Do you find that keeping your “Read Latest”, “Start Here”, or “Get Started” buttons current to be a hassle?

If so, this simple plugin eliminates those hassles by automatically setting a button’s link to your most recent blog post — no manual edits required!

It’s perfect for use in landing pages, call-to-actions, or onboarding flows where your latest post is always the most relevant next step.

What It Does

This plugin does three things when the page loads:

1. JavaScript fetches the URL of the most recent post using WordPress’s admin-ajax.php
2. It finds the first element with .update-latest-post-url
3. It replaces the href with the permalink of the latest published post

How It Works

This plugin does three things:

1. Defines a server-side PHP function to retrieve the latest published blog post
2. Registers a WordPress AJAX endpoint to expose that URL to JavaScript
3. Injects JavaScript into the page footer that updates the href of any <a> element with a specific CSS class

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Download and Install the Plugin

Download the Plugin ZIP

• Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin
• Upload update-latest-post-url.zip
• Click Install Now, then Activate

2. Add a Button or Link Element to Your Site

In your page builder, template, or HTML:

<a class="update-latest-post-url" href="#">Read Latest Post</a>

• Use any valid anchor tag (<a>)
• Can be inside or outside a <button> wrapper
• Assign the class: update-latest-post-url
• Set a placeholder href="#" — this will be replaced automatically

3. That’s It — The URL Will Update Automatically

Optional: Use the Shortcode

You can also embed the latest post URL directly into page content:

[update_latest_post_url]

This works inside:

• Posts & Pages
• Page builders that support shortcodes
• PHP templates (via echo do_shortcode('[update_latest_post_url]'))

What Else?

Need multiple buttons? Want to extend this for CPTs or categories? Let us know in the comments.