In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will learn how to configure other commonly-used WordPress blog widgets.
Add Post Categories
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure a widget to display your Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend setting up your Categoriesfeature first …
(Categories Panel)
Note: Configuring post categories in WordPress will be covered in separate tutorials.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for your widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to have many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar section. (2)
- Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your browser or reload your page to see how the Categories widget will display to your site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar)
Tips:
- Change the default Uncategorized post category to something more meaningful.
- If you use nested categories on your site, you may want to check the Show hierarchy box, otherwise leave this section as is.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget is added to the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s very little to configure. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you have specified will be listed on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar)
For a step-by-step tutorial about how to create and edit WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding Links To Your Site’s Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation menu to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Information“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing on your sidebar (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude certain pages from showing on your sidebar, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
For a step-by-step tutorial on how to find a WordPress post or page ID, go here: How To Find The Post Or Page ID In A WordPress Site
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your blog’s pages will now show on the sidebar menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is useful if you would like to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Now, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar menu.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend first configuring your Links section inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure WordPress Links.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The Links widget offers a number of configurable options, including the ability to specify what information to show about your links and how many links you want to display on the sidebar navigation menu …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar navigation section as you want. As you will see in a moment, this lets you create and display specific lists of links on your site …
(Add Multiple Links Widgets To The Sidebar Navigation Section)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(Links widget: ‘Sort by:’ drop-down menu)
You can also create and display a list of items for a specific category, by selecting a link category from the ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu …
( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button to update your settings. Your widget will become immediately visible on your site …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar navigation area)
As the above example shows, you can display specific external links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to your sidebar section.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial series.
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