How to Query the Top 5 Posts of a specific category?

Question

Well, depending on what you mean by top 5 posts. You can get top most read, top commented, most liked etc. For comments you can just make your query with argument

orderby=comment_count

If you want the most viewed, first you need to add the views counter like this:

/********* Post Views counter  ***********/
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'adjacent_posts_rel_link_wp_head', 10, 0);

if(!function_exists('mytheme_setPostViews')){
    function mytheme_setPostViews($postID) {
        $count_key = 'post_views_count';
        $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true);
        if($count==''){
            $count = 0;
            delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key);
            add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0');
        }else{
            $count++;
            update_post_meta($postID, $count_key, $count);
        }
    }
}

if (!function_exists('mytheme_getPostViews')) {
    function mytheme_getPostViews($postID){
        $count_key = 'post_views_count';
        $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true);
        if($count==''){
            delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key);
            add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0');
            return "0";
        }
        return $count;
    }
}

And in your single.php you’ll add after the begging of the loop

<?php if (have_posts()) :  while (have_posts()) : the_post();

    mytheme_setPostViews(get_the_ID());

To make the counter count.

Then to pull out the most viewed posts make a shortcode like

<?php
// Usage: [most_read_articles title="" post_no="" class=""]
function mytheme_most_read_posts( $atts, $content ){
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'title'     => '',
        'post_no'   => '',
        'class'     => '',
    ), $atts));

    $pop_arg = array(
        'posts_per_page' => $post_no,
        'post_type'      => 'post',
        'meta_key'       => 'post_views_count',
        'orderby'        => 'meta_value_num',
        'order'          => 'DESC',
    )

    ?>
    <div class="most_read <?php echo $class; ?>">
        <div class="most_read_title"><?php echo $title; ?></div>
        <?php
        $popularpost = new WP_Query( $pop_arg );
        $i = 1;

        if( $popularpost->have_posts() ) :
            while ( $popularpost->have_posts() ) :
                $popularpost->the_post();
        ?>

        <div class="most_read_post">
            <div class="most_read_post_info">
                <span class="view_rank"><?php echo $i.'. '; ?></span><a href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/218275/<?php the_permalink(get_the_ID()); ?>" class="most_read_post_title"><?php echo get_the_title(get_the_ID()); ?></a><span class="post_views">(<?php echo mytheme_getPostViews(get_the_ID()); ?>)</span>
            </div>
        </div>

        <?php $i++;
            endwhile;
        endif;
        wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
    </div>

    <?php
}
add_shortcode( 'most_read_articles', 'mytheme_most_read_posts');

You could modify this how you like ofc. But the methodology is the same.

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