In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this section you are going to configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Frequently-Used WordPress Blog Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, recent posts, news items, add search features, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets)
Configuring Commonly-Used Sidebar Widgets: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder s number of widgets, including:
- Adding a clickable Contact Us button linking to the contact details page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display Links on the sidebar.
- Display news items with an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud section.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar.
To access the Widgets section log into your WP admin and go to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets area into your web browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s get started …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are versatile …
(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 single lines or paragraphs of text, social media buttons, scripts and more to your site … simply 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 …
(A text widget is versatile!)
Example: Using A Text Widget To Add A Contact Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Area
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable contact button on the sidebar 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 a clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar navigation section like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable image on your site, first you must upload the image to the images folder in your server and note the path to your server’s image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be required in Step 3.
In order for visitors to go to your contact page when the help button gets clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link the button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create a support page.
Create a contact page on your site and note the page 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, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to the destination URL.
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 which sections of the above code you will need to replace with the actual contact page and image URLs …
Replace the above URLs and then copy the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets section …
(Widgets Panel)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want the button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the top of the Widget Area …
(Drag-and-drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your 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 the text widget content area and click save …
Add a heading to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the Content area, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to check all URLs 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 without 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’re typing in formatted HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option selected)
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Step 6 – Refresh your browser.
After adding the text widget and code, go to your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button will display at the top of your site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the contact button added to a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that your clickable button works. Test this by clicking on the button. You should be taken directly to your contact page …
(Test your text widget)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you want the contact page to open in a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part containing target=”_blank” in your text widget code):
When adding images to your sidebar section, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of your 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 their layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your sidebar.
(Make sure that the image width does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want the image to be centered in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- You can link the help button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content in your widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this tutorial.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click here:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)