In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this section we will continue configuring other WordPress widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Section To Your Sidebar Area
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on the sidebar.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar. All you need to do, therefore, is 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 the sidebar navigation section, you will first need to configure your Categoriessection inside your dashboard …
(Post Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on using WordPress post categories.
Let’s configure your categories settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the widget 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 your sidebar menu. (2)
- Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your content will display to site visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar navigation 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 box, otherwise leave this box unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget To The Sidebar Navigation Section
The Recent Posts widget is added to the sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is very little 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 setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you have specified will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar)
To learn how to create WordPress Posts, see this tutorial: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget
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 sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar navigation section)
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 by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to hide pages on the sidebar (3) …
(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 from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying to visitors, enter the Page Ids for the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this tutorial: How To Locate The ID Of WordPress Posts And Pages
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the site’s main pages will now appear in the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar menu. This is helpful if you need to display different page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On The Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a Links widget to the sidebar menu.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar area, you should first configure your Links feature inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide step-by-step tutorials on how to set up and use WordPress Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the widget 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 your sidebar …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar navigation area 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 …
(WordPress 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 …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button. Your links will display immediately on your site …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar section)
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 lists of links to your sidebar.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
Click on this link to continue:
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