We’re excited to announce that we’ve publicly shipped the latest version of Contextly for WordPress, which brings some fantastic under-the-hood improvements, along with some fun stuff for writers and readers.

The new version rides on top of a new API, which means the display is faster to load and that we’ll be able to ship new features faster.

Speaking of, the new version includes a super-quick way for writers to add sidebars into the body of their stories. Look for the new S button in your Visual editor.

They look like this:

We also shipped a new display option called Blocks. This gives you the option of showing larger images in a horizontal orientation, which we think readers will love. Turn this on inside the Contextly control panel and you’ll immediately have a different display.

If you want to dip your toes, rather than plunging in, you can set up the new display type as an A/B test inside the Contextly control panel and see if readers like that display better. This is a perfect opportunity to explore the power of our A/B testing.

Finally, sites can also now set up internal promotional links. Note in the screenshot above there’s a block for subscribing to Wired.

So if you have a conference coming up or an e-mail list you think readers might like, you can now set one or more of the links in a section to point to that internal page. You can set your own image for it and change them out as often as you like.

If you aren’t yet using Contextly, but want to try it out, install the plugin or drop us a note at info@contextly.com. We’re still in an invite-only beta for a little while longer, and we’re very good to our beta customers.