In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this section we will continue configuring other widgets.
Adding Categories To Your Sidebar Navigation Section
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(Post Categories widget)
your your WordPress categories …
(WordPress Post Categories)
Note: We plan to create tutorials about setting up post categories.
Configure the Categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have many categories (this significantly reduces the length of the widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar navigation menu. (2)
- Leave the remaining options as the default, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or reload the page to see how the sidebar categories will display to visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar)
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, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget typically appears on your sidebar section by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a title if you want, 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 enter the number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will appear on the sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
To learn how to create and edit WordPress Posts, see this tutorial: How To Create A WP Post
Adding Links To Your Site’s Pages In The WordPress Sidebar Area
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar to display pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- 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 page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide selected pages on your sidebar section (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from showing to your visitors, enter the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
Finding a WordPress post or page ID is covered in this step-by-step tutorial: How To Find The ID Of WordPress Posts And Pages
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s pages will now show on your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is handy if you need to display different groups of pages on your sidebar area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On The Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar area to display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links section inside the WordPress dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: How to configure and use the Links feature will be covered in separate tutorials.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your sidebar …
(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 navigation menu …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar navigation menu 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 The Sidebar Area)
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 …
( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your widget will display immediately on the sidebar …
(Links added to sidebar)
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 link lists to the WordPress sidebar navigation area.
***
This is the end of part three of this series of tutorials.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click here:
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com