In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure other frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Add A Categories Widget
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget to display your Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar area. All you have to do, therefore, is place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar section, we recommend setting up the Categoriesfeature inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Categories Panel)
Note: Configuring and using WordPress categories will be explained in other tutorials.
Let’s configure your categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have several categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
- You can leave the remaining options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your Categories widget will look to 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 option as is.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Section To The Blog Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget normally displays in your 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 is really not much to set up. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on the sidebar section …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on sidebar)
For a tutorial about how to create a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A New WP Post
Adding Links To Your Site’s Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar 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 your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- 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: Hide selected pages on the sidebar section (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 in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude certain pages from displaying on the widget, type in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
For a step-by-step tutorial on how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: How To Locate The ID Of WordPress Pages And Posts
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the blog’s pages will now appear on the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is handy if you want to display different groups of pages on your sidebar menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Now, let’s add a widget to display external links on your WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar area, we recommend configuring your Links section inside the WP dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide tutorials on how to set up WordPress Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag it 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 …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar 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 WordPress Links Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Area)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress 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 …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to sidebar menu)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to your WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial series.
Click here to access the rest of this tutorial:
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