In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will learn how to configure other sidebar widgets.
Adding Categories To Your Sidebar Navigation Menu
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on your sidebar.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar. All you need to do, therefore, is 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 navigation menu, you will first need to configure the Post Categoriessection inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Post Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up post categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar menu. (2)
- You can leave the remaining options as the default, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your browser or reload the page to see how your content will look to your visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar area)
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 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 Section To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget typically appears in your sidebar navigation area by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really very little to set up here. 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)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar)
Creating a WordPress Post is covered here: How To Create A New WP Post
Adding A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar area to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- 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: Hide pages on your sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar, type in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this tutorial: How To Locate The ID Of Any WordPress Page Or Post
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the pages will now display in your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar menu. This is handy if you would like to display separate groups of pages on the sidebar section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your Sidebar Area
Next, let’s add a widget for displaying external links on the WordPress sidebar.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar, you should first configure your Links section inside the WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Using the Links feature in WordPress will be explained in separate tutorials.
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 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 the 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 The Sidebar Menu)
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 …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your widget will become immediately visible on your site …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar navigation section)
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 the sidebar navigation menu.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial series.
To continue, click here:
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