In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will learn how to configure other commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
How To Add Categories
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable contact button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories on the sidebar section.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on the sidebar navigation menu. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar menu, we recommend configuring the Post Categoriesfeature first …
(WordPress Post Categories Panel)
Note: Configuring WordPress categories will be explained in other tutorials.
Configure your categories settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the length of your content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar navigation section. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how the content will look to visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar section)
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 unchecked.
- 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 typically appears on the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really not much to configure. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 enter the number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will appear on the sidebar area …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
For a tutorial about how to create and edit a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar
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 widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar menu)
The Pages widget allows you to 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: Use this setting to hide pages on your sidebar (3) …
(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 choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent pages from displaying to your visitors, just enter the Page Ids for all the pages you would like excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A tutorial is provided on finding a page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate A WP Post Or Page ID
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s pages will now display in the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is helpful if you need to display different page groups on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your WordPress sidebar navigation area for displaying links to external resources.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar section, you should first configure your Links section inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide separate tutorials on configuring the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress 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 …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your 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 WordPress Links Widgets To Your Sidebar)
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 your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar)
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 the WordPress sidebar menu.
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This is the end of part three of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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