In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this section you will learn how to configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, filter posts by categories, RSS feed content, add a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets)
Configuring Commonly-Used WordPress Widgets On Your Sidebar: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will learn how to add, configure and reorder various widgets, including:
- Adding a clickable Support Contact image linking visitors to your support page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of your site’s Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar section.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on the sidebar.
To use widgets, access the Widgets area located inside your admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets section in your web browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin configuring your widgets …
Add A Text Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Text widgets are quite useful …
(Text widget)
Rich Text Widget
From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …
(Rich Text Widget)
This lets you quickly and easily format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar section or other widget sections, such as quotes, ads, reviews and more to your site … simply by typing in text or adding HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings …
(Text widgets are versatile!)
Example: Add A Support Button To The Sidebar Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable help button on the sidebar navigation menu that takes your visitors to a page on your site (or an external site, e.g. a helpdesk) where they can contact you for help and support.
First, create or source a graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the button image to a folder on your server and write down the URL pointing to your server’s image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
For someone to be taken to the contact page when the support button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link the button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your destination page.
Create a contact page and note its URL …
Step 3 – Create the HTML code for your text widget.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, we just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to your contact page/helpdesk.
Your instructions can be written a simple text file and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code above with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above code that you will need to replace with the actual contact details …
Replace the above URLs and then copy the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help understanding basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Next, go back to your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want the support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release it at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag-and-drop your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the text area, then click the save button …
Note: Make sure to check all links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text with no formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: not required if you paste in formatted content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not selected)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)
***
Step 6 – Refresh your browser.
Once you have added the widget and content, go to your site and refresh the browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the clickable support button should display in your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The last step is to make sure that your destination link works. Test your button to make sure that your visitors will go to your contact page when clicking the button. You should be taken to your contact page …
(Test the clickable button)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like a new browser window to open up when visitors go to your contact page (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part that says: target=”_blank” in the code):
When inserting images into your sidebar section, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display different column widths depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the graphic image, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make graphics display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Make sure the width of the image does not exceed the sidebar column width)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the image in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link the contact button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content inside the widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this series of tutorials.
To keep reading, click here:
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com