In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this section we will continue configuring other WordPress widgets.
How To Add A Categories Widget To The Blog Sidebar
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure a widget for Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar area by default. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
your categories …
(WordPress Categories Screen)
Note: We plan to provide tutorials about configuring and using post categories.
Let’s configure your Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to have several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of the content by displaying all categories in 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 when finished …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your browser or reload the page to see how your Categories widget will look to blog readers …
(Categories widget added to sidebar section)
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, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Section To Your Blog Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget normally appears on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really very little to set up in this widget. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you want to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will appear on your sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on blog sidebar)
We provide a tutorial on how to create and edit WordPress Posts here: How To Create A WP Post
Displaying Your Site’s Main Pages In Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Area
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation section for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar navigation section)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing 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 choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from showing on your sidebar, type in the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this tutorial: How To Find A Post Or Page ID In WordPress
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s pages will now display in the sidebar navigation menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation area. This is handy if you need to display separate page groups on the sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your WordPress Sidebar Section
Next, let’s add a Links widget to the sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar area, we recommend setting up the Links section first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links 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 the sidebar section …
(WordPress 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 Links Widgets To Your Sidebar Area)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress 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 …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar navigation menu)
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 your sidebar area.
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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to continue:
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