In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure other frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
Adding Post Categories To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar by default. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend first configuring your categories inside the dashboard …
(Post Categories Panel)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up WordPress post categories.
Configure your categories settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your browser or refresh the page to see how your Categories widget will display to site visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar)
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 box, otherwise leave this box unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts To Your Blog Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget typically shows in the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is not much to configure in this widget. 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 when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you’ve specified will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to sidebar)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to create WordPress Posts here: How To Create A New WP Post
Displaying Your Site’s Main Pages In The Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar linking visitors to the pages on your site.
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 allows you to configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Information“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to hide pages on your sidebar navigation section (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude pages from displaying to visitors, enter the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial about how to find a page ID in WordPress here: Finding A WP Post Or Page ID
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s pages will now display on the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is handy if you would like to display separate groups of pages on the sidebar navigation menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your Sidebar Navigation Menu
Next, we’ll add a widget for displaying external links on your WordPress sidebar.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend setting up your Links section inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The Links 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 area …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the 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 Links Widgets To Your 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. Your widget will display immediately on your sidebar navigation area …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar area)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to the WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click here:
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