In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other WordPress widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Section
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure your Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar navigation section. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we first recommend configuring your categories inside your WP dashboard …
(Post Categories Panel)
Note: We plan to create separate tutorials that show you how to configure categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure your 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 have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of the content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar. (2)
- Leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or refresh your page to see how the sidebar categories will display to your blog readers …
(WordPress 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 box unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget
The Recent Posts widget is typically added to your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on the title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is not much to configure. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with 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 …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will be listed on your sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar section)
For a tutorial on how to create and edit WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Information“) (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 displaying on the sidebar area (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 – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying on your widget, type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
How to find a WordPress post or page ID is explained here: How To Locate The ID Of Pages And Posts In Your WordPress Website
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now appear in your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation area. This is helpful if you want to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, let’s add a Links widget to your sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar menu, we recommend configuring your Links feature inside the dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up and use the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag it to your active area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The 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 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 The 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 …
( 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 section)
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 link lists to your WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of part three of this series of tutorials about using Widgets.
Click here to view Part 4:
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