In Part One of this tutorial, we cover the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you will learn how to begin configuring various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration needed, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, recent posts, text or HTML banners, add content search features, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets)
How To Add Sidebar Widgets To WordPress: Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:
- Adding a clickable Support button linking to your contact page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display important Links on your sidebar navigation area.
- Display news items with an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on your sidebar area.
The Widgets area is located inside the WP admin area and can be accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets panel into your browser window …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin by learning how to configure text widgets …
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 lets you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as quotes, image links, reviews and more to your site … just type in text or paste 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 extremely versatile!)
Example: Add A Contact Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable help 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 “help button” graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the graphic image to your server’s images folder and note down the address of your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
In order for visitors to be taken to your contact page when they click on the graphic button, you must either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create your 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, you just need to create the instructions linking your button image to your destination URL.
Your code can be typed into a plain text editor and should 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 with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above sample code that you will need to replace with your actual contact details …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of your text file content to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets screen …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a 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 Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a heading to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Help”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the Content box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to check all links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text without 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 type in formatted content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not ticked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
After adding your text widget and formatted content, visit your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your support button will display at the top of your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the support button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that the clickable button works. Test this by clicking the support button. If you are taken to your contact page, then the text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget)
Useful Tips:
If you want your support page to display inside a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part containing target=”_blank” in your html code):
When inserting images into 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 may display elements differently depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of your button images, then you may need to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make the images display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the button in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- You can link your support button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the links in your text widget.
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This is the end of section two of this tutorial series about how to use WordPress widgets.
To continue, click here:
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"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)