You can simply do it without a plugin.
To count the post views, the first thing you have to do is to add the following code to your WordPress Theme functions.php
<?php
/*
* Set post views count using post meta//functions.php
*/
function customSetPostViews($postID) {
$countKey = 'post_views_count';
$count = get_post_meta($postID, $countKey, true);
if($count==''){
$count = 0;
delete_post_meta($postID, $countKey);
add_post_meta($postID, $countKey, '1');
}else{
$count++;
update_post_meta($postID, $countKey, $count);
}
}
?>
And now we will call this function in the single.php to update the count value in the Database.
<?php
customSetPostViews(get_the_ID());//single.php
?>
Now in the same single.php file if we want to show the post view count, we can use this code:
<?php
$post_views_count = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'post_views_count', true );
// Check if the custom field has a value.
if ( ! empty( $post_views_count ) ) {
echo $post_views_count;
}
?>
Now to show all the popular post in the descending order by post view count. use this code:
<?php//popular post query
query_posts('meta_key=post_views_count&posts_per_page=5&orderby=meta_value_num&
order=DESC');
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php
endwhile; endif;
wp_reset_query();
?>
Happy Coding