In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
Add A Categories Widget To The Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget to display your Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on the sidebar menu by default. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar menu, we first recommend setting up your post categories inside your WP dashboard …
(Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure post categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure the Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have several categories (this significantly reduces the length of the widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or refresh your page to see how your sidebar categories will display to your site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar menu)
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 option as is.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts To Your Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget displays on your sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure your 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, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show 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 navigation section)
For a tutorial on how to create WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation area to display the pages on your site.
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 your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Pages“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from being visible on your sidebar navigation section (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 select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from showing in your widget, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial that show you how to find a WordPress post or page ID here: Finding The WordPress 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 the site’s pages will now appear in the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation section. This is handy if you would like to display separate groups of pages on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to the WordPress sidebar navigation area to display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring the Links feature inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(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 your 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 Your Sidebar)
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 your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(External 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 sidebar area.
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This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial series.
Click here to keep reading:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum