In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In Part 3, we began configuring a number of sidebar widgets in WordPress.
In this final installment, you are going to learn how to complete the tutorial series by configuring a few more frequently-used widgets.
In WordPress v. 4.8, WordPress introduced new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an updated text widget that supports visual editing …
(WordPress 4.8 introduced new widget updates)
These widgets let you add content from your media library and media stored in other servers or storage locations (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.).
Let’s go through how to configure and use each of these widgets:
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 format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text quickly and easily …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
To learn more about using text widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
WordPress Image Widget
The WordPress Image Widget lets you add an image to your sidebar from your Media Library or an external storage location.
To add an image, drag an image widget to your active widgets area …
(Image Widget)
Click on ‘Add Image’ …
(Let’s add an image!)
Select an image from the Image Library, check or add image details (e.g. Caption, Alt text, Description, etc.) if desired and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …
(Select an image)
The image will automatically load into the widget area …
(Image added to widget)
Add a Title to your image if you want, or leave the ‘Title:’ field blank and click ‘Save’ …
(Save your image)
Preview your website and you should see the image displayed where you have placed your image widget …
(Image added to website using WordPress image widget)
If you want to link your image to an URL, go back to your image widget and click on ‘Edit Image’ …
(Image Widget – Edit Image)
Add a URL in the ‘Image Details’ > ‘Display Settings’ > ‘Link To’ screen and click the ‘Update’ button …
(Link your image to an URL)
To add an image stored in an external server or remote location, locate and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard …
(Copy image URL to your clipboard)
Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …
(Image Widget – Replace image)
The Media Library browser opens. Click on ‘Insert from URL’ and paste in the image URL copied to your clipboard, then click on ‘Add to Widget’ …
(Add image URL)
If you have previously added an image title in your widget, remember to replace it if required, then click ‘Save’ …
(Save your new image)
The new image will now display on your sidebar …
(New image added using WordPress image widget)
To learn more about adding images to WordPress, see this tutorial:
WordPress Video Widget
The WordPress Video Widget lets you add audio files to your sidebar from your Media Library, YouTube, Vimeo, or an external storage location.
To add a video to the sidebar, drag a Video widget to your active widgets area …
(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)
Click the ‘Add Video’ button …
(Video widget – Add Video)
Select a video from your media library or add a video URL and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …
(Add a video URL)
Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …
(WordPress Video Widget – Save Button)
Your video will display on your site where the video widget has been added …
(Video added using WordPress video widget)
To learn more about adding video to WordPress, see this tutorial:
WordPress Audio Widget
The WordPress Audio Widget lets you add audio files like podcasts, music or a personal greeting to your sidebar from your media library or an external storage location.
To add an audio file to your sidebar, drag an audio widget to your active widgets area …
(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)
Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…
(WordPress Audio Widget – Add Audio button)
Select an audio file from your media library or insert the URL of an audio file stored in an external location …
(Select your audio file)
Add a title to your widget if desired and click the ‘Save’ button …
(Save the audio file on your audio widget)
Your site will now display an audio file to visitors where you have placed the audio widget …
(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)
To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:
Add A Newsfeed To The WordPress Sidebar
Now, let’s add An RSS widget to the sidebar section.
To add the widget, select an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your sidebar …
(WordPress RSS Widget)
Enter the following information into the widget settings:
- RSS feed URL: Paste the URL of your RSS feed here.
- Feed Title: If you would like to add an optional title to the widget, enter it into this field.
- Items to display: Choose how many items you want to show on the sidebar navigation area from the drop-down menu.
- Display item content: Tick this box if you would like to display the RSS feed content.
- Display item author: Tick this box if you want to display the feed item item author.
- Display item date: Tick this box if you want to show the item item date.
(RSS Widget settings)
Experiment with different settings to find the ideal combination for your site.
The example below shows an RSS Feed widget configured using the above settings …
(WordPress RSS Widget added to sidebar area)
The screenshot below shows the RSS widget configured with additional options selected …
(RSS Widget settings)
To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:
Adding A Tag Cloud To The WordPress Sidebar Section
Now, let’s add A Tag Cloud widget to your sidebar.
Tags appearing in your widget are managed in the Tags screen …
(Tags area)
To use the widget, select a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your active area …
(Tag Cloud Widget)
There’s really not much to configure in this widget. You can add a widget title, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when finished …
(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget settings)
Your Tag cloud will now display on your sidebar …
(Tag cloud displaying post tags)
The example below shows a published Tag Cloud widget set up to display Categories instead of Tags …
(Tag Cloud widget displaying post categories)
To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:
Configuring Your Archives Widget
To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the default Archives Widget, which is a frequently-used WordPress widget.
As you continue adding new content to WordPress, your older posts begin to get pushed further down the chronological list and become less visible to users. Your posts are still there, it’s just not as visible.
The Archives Widget lets visitors view earlier WordPress posts …
(Archives Widget)
There is really very little to configure. You can add a title if you want, and choose whether to display items in your sidebar area in a dropdown menu, and display post counts . Click Save when done …
(WordPress Archives Widget settings)
The example below shows the Archives widget configured to show posts as a dropdown menu with post counts enabled …
(WordPress Archives Widget added to sidebar)
Now that you know how to configure your widgets in WordPress, let’s explore some other aspects of using WordPress widgets.
Widgets – Useful Tips
Here are some additional things to know about WordPress widgets:
Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets
Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …
(Jetpack Widgets)
It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …
(Jetpack adds ‘Visibility’ to all widgets)
This function lets you specify whether to display or hide widgets from your sidebar based on conditions you set for a particular category, author, user. role, tag, date, or page …
(Set conditions to show or hide widgets)
This is a really useful function to have.
For example, you can:
- Display a widget only on your home page or only on posts published under certain categories, tags, authors, dates, etc.
- Configure widgets to display specific or time-sensitive announcements based on a post’s category, date, etc.
- Configure widgets to display targeted ad banners based on a post’s category or tag.
- Hide widgets from appearing on certain posts or pages to prevent users from being distracted (e.g. remove widgets with ads from your sales pages).
- And more!
To learn more about using the Jetpack plugin, go here:
Overriding Default Widgets
If you see widgets appearing on your blog sidebar that aren’t showing up under your active sidebar inside the Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because with some themes, until you add widgets to the sidebar, the theme will display its own default set of widgets.
For example, the site below shows a couple of widgets in the sidebar …
If you look inside the Widgets area, however, no widgets have actually been added to the available widget areas …
This theme is obviously using default widgets.
Once you add one or more widgets to an available widget area, the other widgets will your new widgets will be used instead.
Note: If you want no widgets to appear in your sidebar section, either use a theme page template without a widgets section or just add a blank Text widget to the sidebar area.
Add a blank text widget to a widget area …
And the default widgets will not show in your sidebar/footer section …
Accessibility Mode
As we’ve shown you in an earlier example, with WordPress you can quickly rearrange how content displays in areas of your website sidebars, footers and navigation menus with only a few clicks of your mouse button, using drag-&-drop technology …
(Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience)
In the above screenshot, for example, you can see that we have easily redesigned the layout in the site’s sidebar section by switching around the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.
You can rearrange your sidebar layout with widgets to improve visitor experience.
If, however, you find that you cannot move widgets using drag & drop (e.g. using a mobile device that doesn’t support dragging-and-dropping), then you can still work with widgets by enabling Accessibility Mode.
Enable Widget Accessibility Mode
Enabling Accessibility Mode, via your Screen Options, allows you to use Add and Edit buttons instead of dragging and dropping.
To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your WordPress admin area and navigate to the Widgets section …
(Widgets Menu)
Click on Screen Options on the top right hand corner of the screen …
(WordPress Widgets – Screen Options)
Click link to enable accessibility mode …
(Turn on accessibility mode)
Once the feature has been enabled, the widgets in the Available Widgets section will display an Add link, and the widgets in the Active Widgets section will display an Edit link …
If you click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …
A screen will display the selected widget with options for customizing the widget’s settings, selecting the widget location, plus drop-down menus that let you specify the position of the widget in your selected location (e.g. position “1”, “2”, “6”, etc.) …
Click Save Widget to add the widget to the Active Widgets section, or click the Cancel button to return to the previous screen …
Click on an active widget’s Edit link …
A screen will display the selected widget with options for changing its settings.
Click Save Widget to update your settings and return to the Active Widgets section, or click the Delete button to delete the widget from the Active Widgets section …
Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to restore the drag-and-drop functionality to your Widgets …
(Switch off accessibility mode)
Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets – An Easy Cheat
Most of the widgets that you will use will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets section when you install new plugins on your site.
If you want to create your own sidebar widgets, then here is an easy way:
First, create a new Post and enter the content that you want to add to the sidebar navigation menu…
Ensure that any images you use are resized to fit the maximum width of your sidebar. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have a lot of room to put content on your sidebar navigation section, so try and keep your information concise.
Also, don’t worry about publishing your Post – all we are looking for is to copy the code of the content to be pasted into your sidebar widget.
To get the content code, click on the Text tab …
Select and copy everything to your clipboard…
Next, go into your Widgets Screen.
Insert a new Text widget into your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save …
Your custom widget will be added to your sidebar navigation area…
(Create your own custom sidebar widgets)
Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure WordPress sidebar widgets.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now