In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure various sidebar widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Sidebar Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several 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, RSS feed content, adding site search features, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
Adding Frequently-Used WordPress Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:
- Adding a Contact Us graphic button linking to your contact page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Adding a list of your site’s main Pages.
- Display important Links on the sidebar section.
- Displaying the latest news with an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud section.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to the sidebar navigation menu.
The Widgets area is located inside your WordPress admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets panel in your web browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s configure WordPress text widgets …
Adding Text Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Menu
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 can be used to add lists, social media buttons, messages and more to your site … just by typing in text or pasting HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings …
(A text widget is really versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Support Button To The Sidebar Navigation Area
For this example, we’ll set up a support button on the sidebar that takes your 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 graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of your sidebar menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable button image on your site, you must first upload the button image to your server’s images folder and write down the path to your server’s image location.
E.g. …
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 the support button gets clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add a contact page.
Create a contact page and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
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 graphic image to your destination URL.
Your instructions can be composed in a simple text editor and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot 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 the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release it at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your text widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget options. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click save …
Add a heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the large text box, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to test all URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: this is not necessary if you’re typing in formatted HTML code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box selected)
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Step 6 – Refresh the browser.
Once you have added the text widget and HTML content, visit the front-end of your site and refresh the 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 a clickable button added to a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The final step is to ensure that your links work. Test your button to make sure that your visitors will go to your support page when clicking the button. If you are taken to the contact page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test your text widget to ensure it works)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like the contact page to open in a new window when visitors click on the support (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. add the section that says: target=”_blank” in the text widget code):
When adding images to your sidebar menu, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of your 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 are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make the images display correctly on your sidebar.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the button inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- Link the support button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content inside the widget.
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This is the end of section 2 of this series of tutorials.
Click here to continue:
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