In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you will configure other widgets.
How To Add A Categories Widget
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Post Categories on the sidebar area.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar navigation section by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we first recommend setting up your Post Categoriessection inside the WordPress dashboard …
(Categories)
Note: Configuring and using categories in WordPress will be explained in other tutorials.
Let’s configure your categories settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unchecked. (2)
- You can leave the remaining options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your content will look to your site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar navigation menu)
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 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 Menu
The Recent Posts widget displays on your sidebar navigation section by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really very little to set up. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy to use 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 WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar navigation section)
A tutorial is provided on how to create a WordPress Post here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- 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: Hide pages on your sidebar navigation menu (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 exclude certain pages from displaying to your visitors, type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this step-by-step tutorial: Finding A WP Page Or Post ID
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the pages will now show on your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is useful if you would like to display separate page groups on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your Blog Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation area that will display links to external resources.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links feature inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide tutorials on using WordPress Links.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links 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 …
(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 Your Sidebar Area)
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 …
(Links added to sidebar)
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 WordPress sidebar menu.
***
This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
***
"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