In Part One of this tutorial, we cover the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to begin configuring various widgets in WordPress.
Configuring Frequently-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration needed, such as widgets that let you display external links, recent posts, RSS feed content, add a search box, etc.
(By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
How To Configure Commonly-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets In WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will learn how to add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:
- Add a clickable Support image linking to your help page.
- Adding a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of your site’s main Pages.
- Display useful Links on the sidebar.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add tags to the sidebar through a Tag Cloud section.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar section.
The Widgets section is located in your WordPress administration area and can be easily accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets panel into your web browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin to configure your sidebar menu widgets …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are versatile …
(WordPress 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 the sidebar or other widget sections, such as article snippets, maps and directions, special promotions and more to your site … simply type in text or paste HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are really versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Support Button To The Sidebar Navigation Menu
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable support button on the sidebar menu that takes 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, you will need to create or source a “help button” graphic image that you will want your visitors to click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar navigation area like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable image on your site, first you must upload the image to the images folder in your server and note the path to your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
For visitors to be taken to your contact page when the help button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link the button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your destination page.
Create a contact page and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Compose your text widget code.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
Your code can be composed in a simple text editor and should 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 with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows which sections of the above code you 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, see this tutorial:
Go back to your Widgets area …
(Widgets Panel)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the clickable button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release it at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click save …
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 your contact page and image URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re 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 paragraphs (note: this is not necessary if you type in HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option ticked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added your widget and code content, visit your site and refresh your web browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button will display in your sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support button added to a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The final step is to ensure that the links work. Test this by clicking the button. If you are taken to your contact page, then your text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you want the contact page to display in a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the section containing target=”_blank” in your html code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation area, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes can display different column widths depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the button images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make the images display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Make sure the width of the image does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want the button image to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link the contact button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content in your text widget.
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This is the end of part two of this tutorial series.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum