In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this section you are going to learn how to begin configuring various sidebar widgets in WordPress.
Configuring Frequently-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets, such as widgets for displaying links to your site’s pages, recent posts, news items, add a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets)
How To Add And Configure Commonly-Used Widgets On Your WordPress Sidebar: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder various commonly-used widgets, including:
- Add a clickable Support Contact graphic button linking to your support page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Adding a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar navigation area.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud section.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar navigation area.
The Widgets area is located inside the administration area by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets area in your browser window …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s start by configuring WordPress text widgets …
Adding Text Widgets To The Blog Sidebar
Text widgets are incredibly 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)
A text widget can be used to add lists, images, reviews and more to your site … just by typing in text or pasting HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is very useful!)
Example: Using A Text Widget To Add A Help Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Section
For this example, let’s set up a contact button on your sidebar that will take 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 you can use on your own site …
We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar section like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the image to a folder on your server and note down the address of your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be required in Step 3.
For someone to be taken to your contact page when they click on the graphic button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create a destination page.
Create a contact page on your site and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Compose the HTML code for your text widget.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable image.
Your instructions can be written a plain text file and should look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code 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 which sections of the above sample code you need to replace with your actual contact details …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help understanding basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where the support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release it at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the text widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a title to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the large text box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and button image URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: not required if you’re pasting in code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box selected)
***
Step 6 – Refresh your browser.
Once you have added your widget and HTML content, visit your site and refresh the browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button should display at the top of your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the button added to a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the button.
The last step is to make sure that the links work. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to the contact page when they click on the button. You should be taken directly to the support page …
(Test your text widget to ensure you’ve set everything up correctly)
Useful Tips:
If you want a new window to open up when visitors click on your help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the section that says: target=”_blank” in the html code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation section, make sure that the width of the image doesn’t exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes can display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of your graphic images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make elements display correctly on your theme.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want the button image to be centered in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link your help button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content in the widget.
***
This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial.
To view Part 3, click here:
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)