In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other default sidebar widgets.
Add Post Categories
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget to display Post Categories on the sidebar.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar, we recommend first setting up the Post Categoriessection inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Categories Panel)
Note: Using categories in WordPress will be explained in separate tutorials.
Configure your categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
- Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your browser or refresh your page to see how the sidebar categories will display to your blog readers …
(Categories widget added to sidebar navigation menu)
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 option, otherwise leave this box unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget
The Recent Posts widget normally shows on your sidebar navigation section by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on its widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you want to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar)
How to create WordPress Posts is explained here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Main Pages In Your Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Inserting a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from displaying on the sidebar (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from showing in the sidebar, simply type the Page Ids for the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial about how to find a WordPress page ID here: How To Find A Post Or Page ID In Your WP Site
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now display on the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar area. This is useful if you would like to display separate page groups on the sidebar navigation menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Now, let’s add a Links widget for displaying external links on your sidebar menu.
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend first setting up your Links section inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to create a separate tutorial that shows you how to set up and use the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find 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 your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar navigation area 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)
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. Your links will become immediately visible on your site …
(Links added to sidebar navigation menu)
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 link lists to the sidebar area.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial.
To keep reading, click here:
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